A True Love of Mine – Page 22 – Sweets and Cakes of all Shapes and Sizes!

‘Tis The Season: KB Spiced Rum

Now that its December I can start to properly get into the spirit of the festive season. And that means carols, christmas decorations and cocktails. And gift buying. Or… gift making! My well-documented love of spiced rum meant that earlier in the year I figured i’d just try to make my own rather than fork out $40 every time I wanted a new bottle. Although this recipe probably doesn’t save that much money (on account of the fairly high price of good golden rum) the main attraction is that you can tweak the flavours to suit your tastes. They also make fabulous gifts as they keep well and look so cute and personalised while actually being very easy to make.

This is all you need

Give or take some spices that you might like to add to suit your taste

And how is this for an easy peasy recipe…

Chuck everything in a bottle.

Thats it!

After a week of storage in a dark cupboard, the rum goes an even lovelier dark caramel colour and its smells delicious!

With at least a few more weeks until christmas, you could definitely whip these up for some gifts.

Easy Peasy!

KB Spiced Rum – Ingredients

1 500ml jar (you need one with a wide neck so that you can fish out the spices)

450 ml golden rum

2 cinnamon sticks

1 vanilla bean

6 cloves

2 star anise

6 little gratings of fresh nutmeg

Method

1. Pour rum into jar

2. Split open the vanilla bean and place, along with all other spices, into the jar

3. Seal tightly

4. Store in a dark place for 1 week (you can take a peek occasionally and give the bottle a good shake)

5. After 1 week, fish the spices out of the jar (you might need to decant the mixture and sieve it back in. If you are doing this, use a funnel or risk losing precious rum)

6. Store for as long as you like. Although you will want to drink this baby pretty soon.

Note: You can mess around with the quantities of the spices. I made a vanilla rum with just more vanilla beans. If you make it in a small batch you can always up the quantities when you find a mix that you like. Have fun!

Oh My! DIY: Potted Succulents

Hubs has a habit of buying quirky and awesome things.

Last year, he bought me this cute retro bud vase for my birthday. I love this lady, just chilling on

the super cool, shiny conch shell. She’s a little bit flinstones, a little bit Gidget and a lot of awesome.

For ages I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Then we hit on the idea of potting a succulent into it.

Soooo here we are! The plant as a whole was too big for the vase

so I just teased out the roots and divided the plant

and voila!

Lady lazing by succulent.

Sounds like the name of a classical painting doesn’t it?

Almost.

Here she is, peeking around the plant.

I think its pretty nifty!

Now i’m sure i’m supposed to do something like drill a drainage hole

or pot the plant using proper potting mix rather than the soil that came with the plant but…

i’m lazy.

And this looks pretty spiffy.

I’m pretty sure you could do it too!

Have any of you lovelies done any diy-ing recently? I’d love to hear about it!

Just a quick post!

Hey there kids! This is just a quick post to let you all know that i’m still alive. And eating gelato burgers.

Yes, you heard that right.

Gelato Burgers.

Hubs and I heard about Cremeria De Luca in Five Dock through Broadsheet and seriously, going there was a no brainer. Gelato and burgers are basically two of the best things ever. This place is super cute and friendly and with a limited menu, its easy to choose what you want. It was refreshing to see that the variety of flavours was in single digits with some pleasant surprises amongst old favourites. I can safely say that this summer will be devoted to attempting to re-create the delicious cinnamon flavoured gelato that I had on my burger! How is it that cinnamon gelato has not yet become a thing???

Self Realisations – Evolving into Adulthood

I really love my life. When it comes to the crunch, despite all the whinging I do, there is very very little I would ever change. Each year I try to make things a little bit better and try to sort out my emerging life as a proper adult. Along the way I have had to have some realisations about my inherent nature. These are things that will probably not change but probably should…

Realisation #1

I’m a total homebody

I’ll never be a glamazon-too-cool-for-school-party-animal. I really just like wearing pyjamas, drinking tea and generally lounging around the apartment in various states of undress. And I love masseur sandals. When my fiance confessed that he really wanted some for christmas, I heaved a sigh of relief because i’ve always wanted some too! Possibly less attractive than crocs, these shoes are the comfiest shoes i’ve ever had and they’re the best thing to slip into after a long long day.