[Recipe] Nutella Chocolate Muffins

Heeeey everyone!

I should be SO stressed right now.
My first exam is on Tuesday and I stayed up studying until the A.M. yesterday and I feel like I'm not making any progress. Screw you, Statistics.
So naturally, instead of freaking out and get my nose up in my books and study more more more, I've whipped up a batch of chocolate muffins.

And instead of doing that now while munching down on them muffins, I'm blogging about it.

How I managed to pass any exams at all last semester is beyond me.

Anyway!

I made these and they are really good. The recipe is freestyled again, just used my go-to "pound muffn" base recipe (though lately I'm feeling that I should use a lot less butter since they always turn out super greasy lol).
I didn't want to leave them plain though so I checked the pantry for whatever I could use and wound up with chocolate muffins with a surprise Nutella core~!

I should've used less sugar and more cocoa powder, the chocolate taste is really subtle. But that should be okay if you use more Nutella. I didn't have a lot, so I didn't do either, but they are pretty yummy nonetheless.

And so fluffy!

Nutella Chocolate Muffins
Makes: 20-24 muffins
Prep time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:
200g flour
200g sugar and cocoa powder (adjust the ratio to your taste - I used 150g sugar and 50g cocoa powder)
200g butter
4 small or 3 large eggs
1 packet baking soda
Nutella for the filling

Instructions:
1. Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Add the soft butter and eggs and mix well until you get a soft dough. It should slide off your spoon easily but also shouldn't be runny.
3. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F.
4. Line a muffin tray with paper liners or grease it thoroughly.
5. Fill a spoonful of dough into every muffin liner, add a spoonful of Nutella on top and cover it with yet another spoonful dough.
6. Put in the oven and let bake 15-20 minutes. They should rise up and get nice and fluffy.

That's it! Eat while warm, that's when the Nutella heart is extra runny and delicious.

Happy baking!

Lots of love,
Besa

[2/101] I'm sending postcards all over the world!

Hello everyone!

Today I'd like to tell you about a really cool project I've recently joined called Postcrossing.

The idea is to send and recieve postcards from places all over the world and connect with a lot of people.
The way it works is that for every postcard you send to a person randomly selected, you recieve another from somewhere else.
Every postcard needs to have a code on it that the recipient then enters on the website to register it. Then you can see the profile of the sender, and the distance the postcard has travelled on the map. You can also upload a picture of the postcard and create a digital photo wall!

I love the idea and I've been following for a few months and now I'm finally in :) It's also on my bucket list - to send and recieve 50 postcards. I'd like to create an actual photo wall with all the postcards I get, or put them in an album, let's see.
So far I've recieved two post cards, one from a German expat in France (pictured above), another from a nice girl in the Czech Republic. It's really cool to think about - those are actual people somewhere in the world, that just for a moment when they look at your profile, write a message and drop it off at the post office acknowledge your own existence. You're there in their minds, in Russia, New Zealand or Argentina, and it's just surreal in a way.

I hope to send and recieve a lot more postcards. I've seen people with over 10,000 postcards on their profile - wow!

I really like it, it's a nice adaption of the penpal theme, and I think everyone should send just a few postcards to see what it's like. My day always brightens up when I find a new one in the letter box!

Lots of love,
Besa

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

Aquarelle & ink pen on paper, 29.7x42cm

14/06/2014

This is the first of a series I've been planning for a long time, actually I had the sketch sitting around for a few weeks before I did the outlines in ink, and after that I didn't work on it further for another few months. My vision of how this was going to turn out changed a little during that time, but overall I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

The idea was to capture those girls that are sung about in psychedelic music - Lucy, in this case, or Alice, Hazey Jane, Julia Dream - and make a connection with a specific substance. In this case it's LSD. The song by the Beatles already gives a lot of imagery as to what one might experience on it - I wouldn't know personally, but this is how I imagine it - the river flowing in her hair, tangerine trees, marmelade skies, cellophane flowers of yellow and green and the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. The back of the drawing actually has those lyrics written out, underneath the chemical formula for LSD. I hope I can continue this series with other drugs and songs as well.

On Facebook

Also, here's a comparison between this one and the old version I drew a few years ago! I remember I was visiting my brother and went to college with him one day. In his Toxicology class the professor was introducing LSD, where it comes from and what it does and I thought that was so insanely cool (but that's probably just the professor, I'm sure should I elect any chemistry or pharmacy classes myself I'll just get the boring stuff). Anyway, I doodled this and then finished it when I got back home. I think I've come pretty far since then, no?

Self portrait with mushroom

I've been thinking about posting my art on here as well, as I think this might be a good platform to give some more insight about the motivation behind some pieces, so I'm going to start that now with my newest piece.

"Self portrait with mushroom"

Aquarelle & ink pen on paper, 21x29,7cm

08/07/2014

There's not a lot to say about this, in a way that most of it is to be kept inside my mind. I'm not good at expressing things through abstract means, I could never draw a pattern and call that a symbol of the anxiety in me. It just doesn't seem right. So I draw things as they are, more or less, I've never actually held that mushroom in my hands, haha. It's a symbol after all, but also very tangible, after something a friend told me. It's there and attainable, but not quite yet. It's quite the anticipation.