Thursday, March 29, 2012

Addiction by Diego Dolcini


I just stumbled upon this fabulous short film on the theblondesalad.com starring Chiara from The Blonde Salad and I thought I would share it with you. It's about an addiction...addiction to shoes! This is right up my alley, enjoy!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Food For You: Cherry Almond Cupcakes


As promised, here is the recipe for those adorable little cupcakes from my previous post. There's some work involved because everything is made from scratch, but I promise you, they are totally worth it!

What You Need:
Batter:
-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
-4 egg whites
-2 cups all-purpose flour
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp baking soda
-3/4 cup buttermilk
-1/3 cup maraschino cherry juice
-1 1/2 cups sugar
-1 tsp vanilla
-1/2 tsp almond extract
-12 maraschino cherries, halved

Frosting:

-1/2 cup butter
-4 cups powdered sugar
-3 Tbls maraschino cherry juice
-1/2 tsp almond extract
-optional: extra cherry juice or milk

and of course, any cute decorations you want to add :)

Batter:

First you want to let the butter and eggs stand at room temperature for at least 30 mins. This allows the ingredients to be absorbed better into the mix. Then, pre-heat your oven to 350°F. Next, stir together your dry ingredients and then in a separate bowl mix together the buttermilk and cherry juice.
Beat the butter until fluffy and then slowly add the sugar, vanilla and almond extract. Next, add your egg whites one at a time, beating well after each egg. Alternately add the dry mixture and the buttermilk mixture to the wet ingredients (with egg). Again, make sure you beat well after to each addition to make sure everything is distributed evenly into the batter.
Then, spoon the batter into cupcake tins lined with paper liners. Smooth out the top of the batters and then insert half a cherry right into the top of the cupcake. Pop those babies into the oven for about 15 to 18 mins. *Insert a toothpick into the cupcake and when you take it out you should see moist crumbs. Let these cool completely on wire racks.

Frosting:
Beat butter until fluffy and then gradually add one cup of sugar, beating well. Next beat in the cherry juice and the almond extract. Then, slowly beat in the other 3 cups of powdered sugar. If your frosting seems too think or dry, add some milk or additional cherry juice. Once it is at your desired consistency, you can add some food coloring to make it extra pink :)
Use a knife or piping bag to frost your cupcakes (I used a zip lock bag with the tip cut off, not the neatest option, but it gets the job done). And now for the fun part(besides eating them of course): decorating! I bought these adorable little pearl sprinkles and polka dot liners and boxes from Michaels Arts and Crafts store and it went perfectly with the color and flavor of the cupcake. And last, I topped with a whole cherry of course!

ENJOY!

Photos: Adorn Me
Recipe: Better Homes & Gardens 2011 Cupcakes Issue

Monday, March 26, 2012

Tea Time












Last Sunday I went to this lovely little tea shop for my friend Mariah's birthday. It is called Alice's Tea Shop and it is the perfect place to get together and have delicious teas and yummy scones. If you're ever in NYC, definitely check it out, it's super cute! I also made those adorable little cherry almond cupcakes especially for Mariah. I'll share the recipe with you soon!

Photos: Adorn Me

Friday, March 16, 2012

Transparent & White





























AH! Finally, a normal post. Sorry guys, I've been a bad blogger lately! So for you, a little bit of a shoe obsession. NYC is definitely in Spring mode and that only means that I needed to get some new Spring shoes, right? RIGHT. I feel a tad disappointed in myself that I bought 3 pairs of shoes in 1 week, oh scratch that, 4, but I returned one because they're too small. But anyway, completely worth it. I thought I was bad until I saw my co-worker Irene bring in about a dozen shoes that she just bought so I could give her my opinion on which ones to keep. Now THAT is crazy!


Happy almost St. Patrick's Day, party hard my friends.

Photos and editing: Adorn Me

Friday, March 2, 2012

Yellow

PHOTO: TOMMY TON FOR STYLE.COM

As of now, I am totally swarmed with school projects, so I apologize for the long break. For a little while, I'm going to be posting short posts until I can get my head above water. Now lets talk about this street style photo by Tommy Ton. Seriously, Ton never disappoints with his compositions. There's so much negative space to the left, but somehow, it just works! When it comes to photography, I am a huge fan of COLOR and since fashion seems to be taking a vivid leap into all things color, street style photography has been is especially pleasing to me.

Thursday, March 1, 2012