Peacocks bird dress (or discovering Polyvore...)

peacocks bird dress by alliec featuring belted dresses

I've just discovered Polyvore, which lets you create outfits from hundreds of different brands! I ordered this fantastic bird dress from Peacocks last week, after seeing it on About Your Dress, and this is how I'm planning on wearing it (except my Radley is a beautiful reddy-orange colour!)

I think I might do a weekly 'Allie's fashion tips' feature (in the style of Jesse's 'This week, I 'ave bin mostly wearing...' from The Fast Show, naturally!)

I've been fiddling about...

...with my blog layout! My list of favourite blogs was getting a bit unwieldy, so I've given them their own page (link under the header).

And I know I haven't posted properly in ages - I will remedy that very soon!

British Summer Time...

...and a lovely sunny afternoon with a breeze blowing through the flat!

A sunny weekend...

It was lovely having my sister to stay this weekend! Yesterday (after my incredible running triumph) we went for a super-healthy lunch in a local organic café, followed by a walk in the park, where we saw all sorts of springlike blossoms. Just a week to go until the clocks go forward! Then, as we had a friend coming round for supper, we made an amazing rhubarb and almond cake (from this Domestic Sluttery recipe) which (as you can see) went down rather well! Tastes very nice for breakfast, too...

A new personal best!

1:07.49! Yay! That's a full two minutes faster than our run last Tuesday!

Emergency chocolate cake...

My sister is a bad influence. Not only does she force me to drink lots of wine (forces me, I tell you!) but she also leads me into chocolatey temptation. She's staying with me this weekend, and last night the after-dinner conversation turned to the fact that we both fancied something sweet and chocolatey. 'If only you weren't so difficult,' I said, 'we could go to Tesco and buy a massive chocolate cake'. And then she mentioned making one of those microwave-cake-in-a-mug recipes that swept the internet a while back, and that was it. I had all the ingredients in the house, so we went for it.

Of course, in our wisdom we thought 'Hang on, if that recipe is for one mug that's never going to be enough - we'll double the recipe and make it in a little mixing bowl'. And my goodness, did it ever work - we ended up with the most incredible chocolate cake with a molten chocolate sauce middle. All those Masterchef contestants who have failed with their chocolate fondants need to take note - microwave baking is the way forward! We used Doves Farm gluten-free flour and Oatly oat milk, and it didn't taste remotely gluten-and-dairy-free. Amazing.

Surprisingly enough I don't have a photo, because we ate the lot.

Emergency chocolate microwave cake

Ingredients (this is our doubled recipe):

8 tablespoons plain flour
8 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa
About half a teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
6 tablespoons milk
6 tablespoons oil

Instructions:

1. Mix flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder in a small mixing bowl
2. Whisk in eggs, milk and oil
3. Microwave for 2:30 on maximum power (800watt) - watch it, you want the edges to be cooked but the middle still liquid
4. Devour straight out of the bowl with a big spoon

I think it'd be amazing done in individual ramekins - they'd probably take only a minute or so in the microwave. It'd probably serve at least four people if you did it like that - doubling the recipe made a quite obscenely vast amount of cake!

Spring is springing!

I don't think spring has quite sprung yet, but it's definitely on the way. I've got the windows open with a lovely (if slightly chilly) breeze blowing through the flat, and the daffodils I bought last week are in full bloom. We're turning the corner!

I'm ignoring the fact that the weather forecast is for heavy rain this evening...!