Just the way playas play, all day everyday...

This weekend I have been a pretty busy playa, as all my pals will  know I function on not very much sleep pretty well and I literally can't lie in which isn't a bad thing, it means I can fit a lot into a day. So yesterday began with some Pattern Planning.

I found a few competitions online to enter so had a massive brainstorm with some help from my main playa Liz over text we came up with some basic concepts to explore. I spent a couple hours working on that and experimenting with different colours and pens resulting in a few solid ideas to work on this week. It also happened that Liz and Steve were coming to London so I headed to South Kensington to meet them for some coffee and Ice-cream and a big catchup; I'm not used to being away from my pals for long so it was so nice to see their friendly faces and I forgot that we don't live down the road from each other anymore.

After stuffing my face with a a delicious cadburys nuts about caramel (I am now) ice-cream I left the Begas and took myself to the V&A for a spot of inspiration, The V&A is probably my favourite gallery as the have amazing exhibitions but also the art, textiles and objects that are there all year round are great to have a mosey round. Everytime I look I find something new to fall in love with, the time I obviously had my playa after a pattern head on and found this absolute treat. It is Iranian tiling which instantly reminded me of my friend Shok from work as she is 1. Iranian and 2. always shows me these kind of treats. It is actually large tiles which appealed to me even more as all I had running round my head was the pattern brief ''Tiled and stepped out, 12 colours...'' so when I saw this I thought perfect example of a pattern tiled out, literally!

Left the V&A feeling pretty hyped and inspired and quickly popped into see some old pals at Carhartt, was so lovely to see them and sing about ''NEALLL STREEETT'' with Silvia and George again, I think they were expecting me to whip out a hip hop baked treat out of my bag but have promised to pop back in with some this week. I had previously popped into see my lovely lady Laila in the Shoreditch store so had some real nostalgic moments this week. After having a good sing along in Neal street and a massive catch up I headed home to work on my patterns. 

I was a tired out playa by 8pm however thought I have done pretty much all my favourite things today so should probably finish it off with a late night hip hop bake and they didn't disappoint. I shall pop the recipe up later this evening, one for the chocolate lovers the DMEggz Brownies are a sugar filled gooey chunk of heaven. 

So today I have been back on the work flex with the patterns and some research for the next week at school, but not without making some paper pom poms this morning...I was up at 6..what else is there to do hey?!

The big soundtrack to a playa weekend is of course...

Russell Cinnamon

Yoyo what up playas. So I thought I can't really slack on the baking updates so taking a break from making paper pom poms (as you do) to update the latest hip hop baked treats. My lovely classmates have been subjected to me talking about Hip Hop Baking, writing about it and drawing about it but without ever actually having any so on Friday I decided to whip them up this Russell Simmons inspired treat for them to sample.

Russell Cinnamon

You will need: 

4 Eggs

8oz Butter

8oz Caster sugar

8oz Self raising flour

3 Bananas 

Cinnamon

1tsp Milk

For the icing:

3.5 oz Butter

10 oz Soft Cheese (Normal size tub)

4 Oz Icing sugar

Vanilla Essence 

Flake for sprinkling (optional) 

Method: 

To be honest this is just a glorified sponge however the added extras make it stand out from your normal Victoria. Simply beat the butter and sugar together, crack the eggs in one at a time and beat until you have a smooth consistency. Now time to get Def Jam style and MASH UP yo bananas in a separate bowl, once they are smooth you can then add this to the mixture asw ell. I would advise using ripe bananas else you get lumps and its never about a lumpy cake. Sift the flour in and add a couple dashes of cinnamon. Now I made a sandwich style bake however I'm sure this would work as a loaf or just one cake. 

Cook on 160c for 25 minutes until the cake is golden and bouncy and leave to cool. 

Now this is when you can have a little dance, rap off to any of the Def Jam artists though obviously I go straight to my main playa Jay-Z. Get your jams on and beat the butter until its nice and smooth, then adding in the cream cheese. Once the mixture is consistent you can add the sifted icing sugar and vanilla essence and voila the perfect vanilla cream cheese frosting is ready to smooth in-between the sandwiches and all over yo cake. Totally up to you whether you add a sprinkle of something, Cinnamon probably isn't a shout as sometimes it can taste a little bitter in lumps so go for something sweet like chocolate. 

The cake managed a journey on the DLR and central line at 8am with no major problems, I had anticipated cake all over my bag or even worse someone else however we made it in one piece and the classmate reviews seemed pretty strong! I really should post a track from Russell's bro Run DMC but gonna go straight for the Def Jam link and whack this on here, my main hustla and I am always feelin it Jay! 

This my jam, this my jam, this my jam, this my jam

I have been absolutely god awful with keeping this updated with my latest hip hop treats for no other reason than I have been such a busy little playa at school. I absolutely love it however it leaves little time for much else rather than design, honestly I feel like its my life, though thats not a bad thing I love it. 

Even though I have let the blog slack I have certainly not been slacking in the baking department or the running either actually. Over the past two weeks there have been 4 bake offs and around 20k completed which isn't so bad considering I'm hustling full time. I am also very excited as I have been working on homemade typography based around baking for the cover of ''The Hip Hop Bakery'' book. 

I currently have another batch of cakes in the oven however here are the latest and I'm sorry I don't have the time to post the recipes but enjoy the visuals and keep watching for the book. Also it wasn't fair to post one of the artists track so how about listen to this whilst you browse the treats, its my absolute favourite song (no pun intended) at the moment and I have been skipping along Shoreditch to it...

''Gateau Boys''

Now this little treat was a special delivery for an afternoon with my two London playas Lizzie and Martyn which seemed to go down a storm. To be fair I don't usually eat my cakes as I see how much sugar goes in to these badboys and I am not on that vibe however Lizzie had cooked us a beautiful lunch and it seemed only right to top it off with a slice of nice. Luckily for Lizzie and I, Martyn finished this off so we could resume our healthy vibes. Inspired by Geto Boys this was definitely a sunday show stopper. 

''Ludacrispy Slices''

Move Bitch get out tha wayyyyyyy, yeah I was all about singing this whilst I whipped these up. Gonna be honest it was the same recipe I used when I was 10 so not too taxing but provided a nice treat for my housemates and also made a scooby snack for my pal Mark who was in the studio for the afternoon, who doesn't want a hip hop treat in the middle of their recording session. 

''Obie Mice''

Now this sugar mice special was actually the result of baking letters to make up the title of ''The Hip Hop Bakery'' book, however I couldn't resist getting a hip hop pun in there. Unfortunately this cake got put on the floor, licked by the dog, scooped onto another surface, squashed against another letter made of eggs so by the end of the day it was in no way edible. Looked pretty playa status though!

''Batten Birdmans''

One of the bake offs from this evening I made these as wanted to make a few more letters for the handmade project and wanted a nice pattern cake to do so and what better than a batten berg!? Again these have been cut up, placed on different surfaces, covered in icing sugar and finally ended up in the bin after I finished taking photos ready to crack on the front cover tomorrow!!