I am so excited to say that Autumn is here! Well technically Autumn doesn't officially begin until 22 September, but hey! What's a few weeks? Autumn is by far my favourite season and not just because my birthday is soon... Although that is a plus! I love the watching mother nature take it's course by putting the earth to sleep for the winter. As we prepare for winter I am going to be sharing loads of great pictures and ideas for projects around the house. Today we are going to start with a fabulous little recipe for pumpkin spice. Pumpkin spice is one of those essential ingredients for Autumn and Winter baking. Its used in lots of yummy treats like pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie. With just four simple ingredients you can whip up a batch of your own pumpkin spice and store it in a jar in your kitchen cupboard. This way each time you need to bake something that requires pumpkin spice you will have it all ready to go! I have also included cute printable labels for your pumpkin spice jars! (Click here to view & print label)
Ingredients
2 tsp Nutmeg
2 tsp Allspice
4 tsp Ginger
8 tsp Cinnamon
Now that we have made some pumpkin spice I thought we could incorporate it in with this next tutorial for How to make a Latte without one of those fancy machines!
I ab-so-lute-ly love coffee. Whether its espresso, cappuccino, macchiato, or just a plain old americano I will drink it! If I had to choose a favourite I would probably say a latte. I love the strong flavour of the coffee combined with the soft milky texture. And the colour is very subtle and pretty. Most of us don't have a brilliantly expensive coffee machine to make delicious lattes at home, so we enjoy them in a lovely cafe or even a takeaway latte to enjoy while strolling down the street or off to work. But, what if you just wanted a cafe quality latte at home while you read the paper, browse your favourite blogs, or just watch TV and didn't want to out? I thought I'd share my little secret for making perfect lattes at home without using a coffee machine.
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| I don't actually own any latte glasses, so for this tutorial I used a jam jar... I quite like it! |
The first thing we need to do is get the coffee brewing. I used a cafeteria . If you don't own a cafeteria, I would highly recommend getting one. You can make a delicious espresso with them!
Now we want to heat the milk. Put just over half a coffee mugs worth of milk into a pot and heat gently on the stove. Be careful not to burn the milk. If you stick your finger in the milk you want it to feel very warm, almost hot.
Pour the milk into your french press. Pump the plunger a few times and you will see the milk start to froth at the top. Continue doing this until you have the desired amount of froth. If you don't own a french press no worries, There is a plan b! (Pour the warmed milk into a bowl and use a whisk (manual or electric) to froth. This may take a bit longer, but the result will be just about the same.
By this point the coffee should be brewed. Pour the coffee into the mug (however much you like). Now it's time to add the pumpkin spice! Add a small 1/4 tsp of pumpkin spice to the coffee and mix well. It would also be a good time to add any sugar if you take sugar in your coffee.
Pour the milk into the coffee and scoop the remaining froth on top, sprinkle with a bit more pumpkin spice, and WALLAH!!
So as all of you probably know by now I love anything and everything that has to do with DIY. When we were living in our old apartment a little closer to the center of town I stumbled across this old footstool bench type of thing that someone was throwing away. It was covered in horrible dark green/blue paint and upholstered with vinyl that had plant pots all over it. Absolutely terrible, and the worst part was that when I was taking it apart I noticed that who ever used the vinyl and horrible paint was also trying to revamp it by covering an ever more horrible dark green paint and cover! Yikes! With a bit of sanding and some fabric scraps I was able to turn this frown of a stool up side down! Ideally, I'd like to share the before photos, but those are stuck in a sim card and I have recently upgraded to an iphone which as you may or may not know has its own sim card. So I need to find a way to get the photos off the old sim card so I can load them to this post! In the mean time though I will show you the brilliant after pictures!
