Blogmas December 3rd- Favourite Christmas Movie

I love Christmas movies, they're just so wonderful for Christmas spirit. For my favourite though, I can't go past Elf. Some things I love generally in life are cheer and enthusiasm, a sense of community and singing. As such, I'll never forget the first time I saw Elf in the cinema with my parents and when in the final scene all the people are singing in Central Park, how the whole cinema also joined in with singing Santa Clause is Coming to Town. I don't think anything else will ever so perfectly encapsulate the beauty and wonder of Christmas.

Blogmas December 2nd- Christmas Recipe

Christmas Pudding Candies!

 

This 'recipe' requires no cooking, is super easy and super cute, they're perfect to take along to a christmas BBQ or shared lunch, or alternatively like me you could just eat them for breakfast.

Ingredients:

1 Packet Chocolate Royal Biscuits
1 packet white chocolate chips
1 packet of jaffas
1 packet of mint leaves

1. Chop the mint leaves into quarters. Also on the note of mint leaves, I found these incredibly hard to find, neither Coles or Safeway sells them and it seems most lolly companies no longer make them, however in the end the trusty $2 shop pulled through with them

2. Melt the white chocolate, and drizzle about a teaspoon over the biscuit

3. Wait a few seconds for the chocolate to set a little so it's not too slippery, and then place the jaffa and two pieces of mint leaf on top

Voila!

Days until Christmas: 23

Blogmas December 1st- Tell us about your last Christmas

My last Christmas was magical. It was spent in Dale, Norway a place where it's impossible to not believe in Santa Clause. Together with my parents and best friend Greta  I was staying in a wood cabin on a mountain looking over the town which was positioned on a fjord and you would be forgiven for mistaking it for Arendelle. Despite a disappointing lack in snow we had a wonderful wintery Christmas. We chopped down a pine tree from the woods and decorated it with it's own pine cones (very meta), we filled our house with paper snowflakes and Christmas carols and though there were no reindeer sightings the non vegetarians did eat some reindeer sausage. On Christmas Day we joined the locals for a Norwegian carols service at the church where all the children were wearing their traditional dress. We initiated a family Christmas tradition of a sharknado viewing.

Last year's Christmas was whimsical and wonderful and unforgettable, but I'm looking forward to the chaos of the big family Christmas this year.

Days until Christmas: 24

Welcome Back

Hello friends! I let this blog fall by the wayside this year because I've been so busy organising life things, but now those life things are actually happening and they're exciting things like exchange and Christmas which are worth blogging about, so I'm back! I'm jumping right back into it with Blogmas, blogging every day up until Christmas, like a blog advent calendar! It will be similar to last years NaBloPoMo however this time we (Louise) have made a list of topics for each day, and all of them are Christmas themed! Hopefully this will eliminate some of the midnight, sun stroke addled, ramblings of last years challenge. Although I am working basically 24/7 at the moment so there's no guarantees  of my sanity. The reason I'm working so much is, as mentioned above, I am going on exchange next year! As of January 10th I will be blogging from New York City, as a student at Barnard college! I'm sure the city will create many adventures for me that you can all read about here. But for now I'm home and spending my favourite time of year with all my favourite people. So let Blogmas begin!

Maple Syrup, Peanuts, and Bacon. Sugar Free, Gluten Free and Vegan.

As I've said many times, I love to bake cupcakes for my friends birthdays. It was recently wonderful Tess's birthday and as she is Vegan and mostly gluten and refined sugar free this was my most challenging task yet. Although it didn't pass my mum's judgement of just as good as regular cake I'm pretty excited with the results. I used direct substitutes for all regular ingredients rather than trying anything tricky, and as such you could put normal ingredients back in to this recipe if you desired.

Ingredients
- 8 tbl spoons Nuttalex Margarine
- 2 3/4 cups All Purpose Gluten Free baking flour
- 2 cups pure maple syrup
- Orgran No Egg- mixed with water to create the equivilant of 3 eggs
- 1 tbl spoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 cup soy milk
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 1/2 cups peanuts (roughly chopped)
- Kinda Bacon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 C  (or 350 F) and place cupcake papers into tray

2. Beat Nutallex until creamy, add maple syrup and beat again, then egg replacer. Beat until light and fluffy

3. In another bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and ginger. Add a third of this mixture to the margarine and beat until just combined. Add half the milk and beat to combine. Repeat this until all flour and milk is added. Be careful not to over beat as this will toughen the mixture.

4. Gently stir through the peanuts.

5. Divide mixture between patty pans, filling them 3/4 full. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

The icing was the biggest struggle for me. I spent hours messing around with whipping coconut cream, blending peanuts and getting nowhere. Eventually I stopped and made myself go back to basics, the result was delicious! Simply whip together nuttallex with maple syrup, adding maple syrup to taste, until the mixture is fluffy like frosting. I then topped the cakes just before they were about to be eaten with Kinda Bacon (the kinder bacon made of coconuts)

Live Below The Line- Eight Hundred and Sixty Three Dollars

Completed! My week of eating off two dollars a day is done, and though I'm glad it's over I'm even more glad that I did it. I learnt a lot, gained perspective and raised a lot of money! My current total is at $863 thanks to all of you amazing people who donated. This money we raised together will provide training for two teachers and pay for school supplies and uniforms for 3 children for 3 years. Or perhaps the money will go toward 16 scholarships for students to complete their schooling. Or it could provide text books for 295 students. And this is just a small part of what Live Below The Line as a whole has achieved, the overall money raised by the 10 thousand Australian Participants is currently $1,400,000.  Access to quality education is the key to breaking the poverty cycle, and I'm so happy to have been able to contribute to that. I'm feeling so thankful for my quality of life, and the opportunities available to me, I hope that I can use these privileges to help others. Thankyou so much to everyone who helped with this particular event!

I'm still collecting donations, so if you want to be a part of this fantastic cause you still can be, up until June 30! https://www.livebelowtheline.com.au/me/brittany_bertram

Live Below The Line- The Impact

We're over halfway now and going strong! Yesterday was hump day, and I thought I'd share two things with you that helped me get through it, by reminding me exactly why we do this. First of all, this amazing video -

Secondly this incredible blog post by a fellow LBL-er who has lived and experienced both side of Live Below The Line which can be found here

I'm still collecting donations here or of cash in person.

Thankyou everyone x