Sockless Sock Bun

Hair. Men are soooo lucky! They swipe a brush through their short little bristles maybe once a week and it still doesn't look terrible. Us girls don't have this fortunality. We are left alone to tend to our mane. When we try, it more often than not fails. If we leave it down at all, we need to carry a constant brush to smooth it down every few seconds. If we put it up, we have to make sure we have extra hair ties and pins to fix it later. Especially girls with thick hair. Mine is really thick, so it takes an hour to brush it and then another to pull it up. My friend, Anna, has long but thin hair. She never pulls it up, leaving it down all day, and as long as she brushed it that morning, it looks great. So many times I have found myself wishing for that kind of advantage.
I discovered this convenient hairdo over the summer at my cousin Mia's house in Washington. She's amazing at these, truly... mine, on the other hand... well, I'll do my best.

Make sure you have 2 hair ties on hand.

First, you pull all of the mop up into a high ponytail at the crown where all the hair comes together at the part with your first hair tie.

Then, you fan it out all over your head like this:

Next, you start pushing up each side into a ball until most of it (with a few strands hanging down) is up, like this :

Okay, now, while your holding the ball in one place with our hand, wrap the remaining strands around the ball. 

Now, stretch the second hair tie around the whole mess:

Ta da! The sock bun! I'm not really sure why they even call it a sock bun.

Extra flourishes: If you want, you can put on a head band or a folded up bandana; both of them look super cute with this. You can also bobby pin the sides of the bun down to make it flatter and not as floppy if you like it better. It looks really cute with the bandana and makeup you put on the day before, so the mascara's kind of of smudged up around your eyes. I did that once. Anything would work though, and it stays in real well, especially with the bobby pins. Try it out! :)

S'more Squares

In the summer my sister and I go camping as much as we can in our old army tent, and the awesome part, obviously, were of course, s'mores. I mostly like just roasting the marshmallows by themselves, but the occasional graham cracker sandwich can sometimes be the best treat in

 the world, especially when it's already dark out.

 The next version of s'mores: s'more bars.

S'more bars are a different type of recipe. It's actual baking and mixing and pouring, and it's one of those recipes you can't resist licking at while you do the baking and mixing and pouring. It's a lot like a cookie bar, except it tastes like a s'more. I don't like the type of s'more bar recipe you look up and it calls for fudge brownie mix and JetPuff cream, because that's not a real s'more. With this recipe, the layers are the real deal. So you s'more fanatics out there who feel like adding baking to it, this is definitely the way to go.



Ingredients:

1/2 cup or 1 stick of softened butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup crushed graham crackers (you can just use a bowl or a hammer to crush them in a large Ziploc)

1 1/3 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/8 tsp. salt

Chocolate: can be candy bars, chips, even m&ms, just some form of chocolate

Marshmallows: Minis, cut up big ones, just smaller

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9 in. square pan.

1. In an electric mixer with the beater attachment or just a normal big bowl with a whisk, cream butter and sugar till it's about the consistency of a cloud.

2. Add the egg and the vanilla to the cloud mixture and beat it thoroughly.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs, the flour, the baking powder, and the salt.

4. Gradually shake the flour mixture into the cloud mixture while the cloud mixture is constantly beating in the mixer bowl, or, if you're using a normal bowl, dump it all in quickly and start stirring till the mixtures are completely incorporated.

5. Set 1/2 cup of the dough aside and press all the dough that's left evenly into the pan. Spread your chocolate over the dough until the dough is about all covered. If you want less chocolate, take some away; if you want more, heap it on till you think it's good.

6. Sprinkle the marshmallows over the chocolate till it's completely covered and more. I usually add more marshmallows then just covered, and if you added chocolate, then definitely add more marshmallows. This is what it looks like before the oven:

7. Crumble the extra 1/2 cup of dough over the top. It doesn't really crumble, but just kind of break it and piece it on. 

8. Put it in the oven for about 25-30 minutes. You want to get the marshmallows to the perfect heat. Let them roast until you see the mallows goldening and slightly bubbling a bit. Then, later, when you eat them after they cool, it gives it the perfect crunch (the squares after the oven):

A closer look:

Don't mind the red stuff; that's just m&ms leaking through. I used those this time. 

Have fun!

Maxi Outfit

School's back! Something I always look forward to with a new school year is a reason to look cute. It's a time to show off your new outfits, people! You have to look good! The other day, my friend and I scrounged around trying to pick a first-day-of-school outfit. I put together a bunch of combinations and had her try them all on for me. We got some pretty cute outfits put together. Now I know for a lot of you this is more like the 5th day of school, but at the beginning of a school year, every day is like the first day with clothes, because you haven't run out of things to wear yet.
My friend I talked about, Ella, had gotten a new Maxi skirt, one of those stretchy, long ones, like this one:

This next one is mine:

Those things are so long, they'd work as a dress. That thought gave us an idea of how to wear the skirts, and we tried it.
First, she pulled the skirt up to the length of a sleeveless dress. It'll probably fall at about mid shins or just below your knees. You might think this is an awkward angle, but trust me, you look great! Then  she pulled on a light, solid aqua sweater. She wrapped a braided white rope belt around the sweater and the skirt at waist length. You can always put a jean jacket on instead of the sweater, just don't put the belt with that. If you have a patterned Maxi, like the one above, use a solid color sweater, so the designs don't clash. Ella had black and white striped skirt, so she used the solid aqua sweater, which is also a great color to go with it.

This is Ella:

                                                     
                                                      This is me, attempting the same look:

                                                     If your skirt is solid, like the one below,

then you can wear a patterned sweater if you really want to, or if that's all you have. Mostly, I would go with the solid one, though, if you have that option. This is me doing it with my jean jacket being ridiculous:

It's kind of fun, and super cute with some wraparound-ankle summer sandals. Some Maxi skirts are shorter up front and flow out long in the back, a veil. If you have one of those, they're super pretty for this outfit. If you live somewhere cold, though, you're running out of time for airy outfits like these, so hurry up!

Lemon Squares

Besides chocolate and toffee, what is like the best flavor around? Lemon. Lemon perfection is amazing, but so hard to get to. Take this recipe for example: these lemon squares have a yummy, flaky, shortbread crust, and a sweet, lemony curd, but I think they're too eggy. That may just be that I am like the most picky egg-eater in the world, a trait I inherited from my mom. Also I don't typically eat any eggs at all, so the taste pops out for me. My sister calls me the egg cop, because if I can taste the tiniest bit of egg when I'm not supposed to be tasting it, it's a nuh-uh. With this recipe, though, the eggy taste I picked out was very slight, and my family couldn't taste it at all. But just a warning, if you're like me, add more lemon juice to the liquid mixture and then taste test the lemon mixture to perfection. You can also do that if you just really like lemon. I got this recipe at a bake sale.

                                      

Notice the thick, shortbread crust. That part is delicious.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups + 3 Tbsp. flour
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt (any kind)
• 2 sticks butter (salted or unsalted)
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 eggs
• 3/4 cup- 1 1/4 cup lemon juice
• Food Processor w/ blade attachment

Instructions:

1. Turn oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 13 by 9 in. pan with cooking spray or butter.

2. Put 2 cups of the flour, powdered sugar and 1/4 tsp. of salt in the food processor bowl (make sure blade attachment is already in there).

3. Cut the butter pieces up into about 1/8ths (more or less) and sprinkle them over the top of the flour mixture in the food processor. Pulse this combination for 20 or so pulses, or just until you think the butter is mixed in and the dough has formed.

4. Dump the dough into the prepared pan and press it flat and even with your hands. Put it in the oven. (You can reduce the temperature to 325 degrees F if you want the crust a little doughier, but I don't usually do that.)

5. While the crust bakes, mix the rest of the flour, the rest of the salt, the sugar, and the eggs in a medium bowl with a whisk for a while, until you think it is mixed in well enough.

6. Add the 3/4 of lemon juice first, taste it, and if you think its good, leave it. If you want more lemon, just keep adding, mixing, and tasting till you think it's right.

7. When the crust comes out, pour the lemon curd over the hot crust and put it back into the oven. If you reduced the temperature for the crust, put it back at 350 degrees F. Bake the bars till you think they're ready, or if you want a specific time, maybe 25 to 35 minutes.

8. Take the lemon bars out and cut them into squares. You can cut when the bars are still hot, or while they're cool; it doesn't matter. (Sometimes I cut them into triangles, just for fun.) You can also sprinkle powdered sugar over the top to make them look fancy. Sometimes I do that, but it doesn't make a difference.

                                                   Ta Da! Your squares are ready! Yea!

Hi!!!!

Welcome to the Chic Café, baking in style. I'm pretty young, but please don't immediately think, it's not worth it, because trust me, your time is well spent. Don't worry... I got style, and style can be sweet. My mom was the first one who introduced me to clothes. She taught me not to like sloppy tees with weird words or static hairdos. She told me when I was in pre school that she didn't like things with letters plastered all over them, but things with cute designs. When she did my hair Mom said that she liked done-up curls or braids instead of messy-falling-all-over-the-place, ratty, uncombed hair. So, automatically, like every kid does, I followed my mother and liked it too, and it stuck. As for baking, 5 years ago, my best friend Bella taught me her favorite recipe: puppy chow, a chocolate peanut butter mix. I fell in love with baking. Since then, I've made dozens of treats for any willing taste-testers, shaping recipes into a familiar version I eventually bring to perfection.
So there you have it: Chic Café. Enjoy!