Mother's day (and Bloom&Wild)

I love my mum. She is the kindest, loveliest, most generous and warm hearted person I know, who always has time to go out for coffee and cake with me, or bring me cups of tea if we're home. Not to mention that this woman can cook. And that's always a plus. I feel genuinely sorry for people that haven't tried her shepherd's pie, and don't even get me started on the heavenly raspberry mousse she whips up when she's feeling kooky. She might drive me slightly mental with her inability to sort the kitchen cupboards out logically (since when did cooking oils and cookie cutters go next to one another on a shelf!?), but I love her more than words can describe and my house wouldn't feel like home without her in it.

So, seeing as it's Mother's day soon and I'm sure loads of people are thinking of treating their mama's, I have juuuuuust the thing. A little while ago, I discovered Bloom & Wild on Twitter. And instantly fell in love. Flowers through your letterbox? What else could you ever want!? I kindly received some in the post yesterday and got so snap happy because they're just so great, so let me guide you through your Mum's new favourite thing....





First of all, they fit through your letterbox. Yep, you 'eard - through ya letterbox so you don't have to hang around waiting for them to arrive. You can pop out, shop out, and they'll be waiting for you on your return. So far, I'm loving it.









The flowers arrive all wrapped up to stop the buds getting damaged on their travels. They're easy to set free and the flowers quickly fall out into shape.







You also get the cutest little card with all available flowers from Bloom&Wild and their names. I learnt something new today (other than how obsessed with roses I am). Not only this, but your flowers come with their very own food. In their very own Bloom&Wild branded sachet. I don't know why I found this so cute, but I did.  So I fed my new roses and popped them into my favourite vase, because they deserved the very best and photographed them. Non stop. I'm refusing to apologize for the amount of pictures in this post.













Have you fallen in love yet? If you haven't, I have one final nail in my Bloom&Wild coffin to swing you. 10%. Off. Your. First. Order. The code is COCO10 and you, well, you are very welcome.

Laura for ASOS (and coffee cake!)

A few images from my shoot with LBL Boutique a little while back. During these shoots, I always try to take a few more 'creative' pictures of my own that I can use for my personal portfolio, as well as photographing the clothes for ASOS and the brands website. I also have exciting news about a fashion show event coming up that I will post as soon as I know more about it!

In other news, last night I baked another coffee cake. Baking at my house is so much more stressful than baking at Mikey's. At his, everything has its own specific place, and the cupboard is arranged in boxes and tubs (the neat-freak in me rejoices!), whereas at mine it's a bit of a free-for-all and only if you're lucky will you make it through the whole recipe without having to go out and get something mum was so sure you already had. This time, it was eggs. I had to go out, in my pyjamas, and get eggs. Thanks mum.

The recipe for this coffee cake is here but this time I got funky, threw the boat out, and in a mad fit added chocolate chunks on top. Mental. AND, this time I managed to photograph the finished piece before my Dad got his mitts on it, smiles all round!

Coffee Cappuccino Cake Recipe!

As you can see, I didn't even get a chance to photograph this thing before it was already half way gone. Vultures, I tell you, vultures. But. This was sooooooo easy to make - the whole thing was mixed up and in the oven within 15 minutes. Considering how good it tastes, I cannot recommend this cake recipe highly enough for anyone who wants to eat cake but can't really be bothered to spend hours slaving in the kitchen. Aka me. This cake is for me (but you're welcome to try it too).

Ingredients: (Cake) 225g soft butter  //  225g muscovado sugar  //  225g self raising flower  //  1 tsp baking powder  //  4 large eggs  //  4 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tbsp of boiling water

(Icing) 175g soft butter  //  350g icing sugar  //  4 tsp instant coffee dissolved again

Method: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and butter two round cake tins. Mix all of the cake ingredients together - except the coffee - and when they're smoothly mixed...add the coffee (I'm serious...that's literally it). Divide between the tins and bake for 25-30 minutes.

While that's getting its bake on, mix the butter and sugar together for the icing. When mixed add the instant coffee again. Voila.

Nowwwwwww when the cake is out of the oven and cooled down, you can either leave it as it is or cut the cakes in half and make a four tier cake. Your choice! We made a three tier cake because one of the layers didn't make it to the icing process before being eaten. We couldn't wait for it to cool down and it looked and smelt SO GOOD. No regrets. Anyway, If you do make this, I'd love to know what you thought of it and how it went down with a cup of tea in the morning. I've got my eye on a Zebra cake from Lily Vanilli's Sweet Tooth book this Wednesday too...