That's right! I made my own cheese the other day. But only after I finished making it, did I realize I could have used food colouring to make it a fun Easter pastel colour! Darn! 

Here's the recipe and instructions:

• ​4 letres / 1 gallon milk (you can use skim, 1%, 2%, or homogenized. However, the lower the fat content of the milk, the less stretchy the cheese will be.)
• 1/4 teaspoon (1/4 tablet) Rennet (available on Amazon) + 1/4 cup water
• 1.5 teaspoon citric acid + 1 cup water
• ​cooking thermometer & a large pot (bit enough to fit a gallon of milk)

​

1. Add Rennet to the 1/4 cup water and stir until combined. Set aside.
2. ​Add citric acid to the 1 cup water, combine, and add to your large cooking pot.
3. Heat the milk on your stove at a low temperature until your thermometer reaches 90 F - 95 F. This is a really low temperature! It'll barely be warm. If you heat it up to much, just turn off the heat and wait for the temperature to lower until it's back down at 90 F - 95 F. 
4. Remove the warm milk from the heat, and add in the Rennet + water mixture. Mix for several seconds until fully combined.
   
5. Cover your pot and allow to fit for 5-10 mins.
6. ​At this point, the milk will have curdled, and soft, chunky cheese curds will have separated from the liquid. It will look like mushy feta. Drag a small knife through your cheese until it's cut into 1 inch squares.
   
7. ​Put your pot back on the heat, and with your thermometer, allow it to heat to 105 F. Slowly stir your curdled cheese. The longer your stir, the firmer the cheese will be.
   
8. Now it's time to drain your curdled cheese! I scooped mine out of the pot into a bowl with a slotted spoon.
9. Now it's time to microwave the cheese. If you don't have a microwave, use this method: Place your cheese in a fine sieve, and submerge it in a pot of hot water (similar to how a double boiler would work, but with a sieve and not a pot). Use your thermometer and allow the internal temp of the cheese to raise to 135 F. Remove from heat and knead. You may have to do this a few times to keep the temperature of the cheese up.
10. ​If you are using a microwave, place your cheese in a microwaveable safe bowl, and put into the microwave for 30 seconds. Knead while it's still warm. You may need to microwave a couple more times to keep the temperature of the cheese up. 
    
11. The cheese will begin to get smooth and stretchy! Add a dash of salt as you're kneading the cheese for flavour. 
    
12. Form it into a ball, and it's ready to eat! Wrap in plastic and store in the fridge :)
    

RAVIOLI PASTA:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tablespoons water
• Egg Wash: 1 egg + 1 tbsp water for 

SPINACH FILLING:

• 1 cup frozen spinach
• 4-6 oz herb & garlic cream cheese (you can use plain cream cheese too and add in a dish of garlic powder though!)

CHOCOLATE & BERRY FILLING

• 1 cup frozen berries
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips 
• 1 heaping tbsp fruit jam
• 1 heaping tbsp flour

 

1. In a bowl, combine flour and salt and form into a mound with a well in the centre. Whisk the olive oil, eggs, and water in a separate bowl. Add half of the egg mixture to the flour and mix. Add the remaining egg mixture, remove from bowl and knead.
2. Knead the dough for about 8 to 10 minutes. If your dough is too sticky, add flour. If your dough is too dry, add water by the tablespoon until it's soft and stretchy. Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
3. Now, prepare the ravioli fillings! Combine the ingredients for your Savoury filling and mix until incorporated, and set aside. Combine the ingredients for your Sweet filling and mix until incorporated. Set aside.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Combine your final egg and water to make the egg wash.
5. Roll out your pasta dough into thin sheets. You can do this manually with a rolling pin and parchment paper (and stretch the dough out by hand as well), or use a pasta maker. To assemble the ravioli, brush the egg wash over your thin sheet of pasta. Drop the filling mixture on the dough by teaspoonfuls about one inch apart. Cover the filling with the top sheet of pasta, pressing out the air from around each portion of filling. Press firmly around the filling to seal. Cut individual ravioli with a knife or cookie cutter!
6. Fill a large pot with salted water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add in the ravioli and cook until the ravioli float to the top (about 5 minutes). 
7. Grease a baking sheet. Place the cooked ravioli on the sheet and bake for about 4 minutes.
8. Enjoy your fresh ravioli! Top the savoury ravioli with your favourite sauce, or for the savoury ravioli, top with a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream!

• 1 cup white sugar
• ​1/4 tablespoons corn syrup
• 2 tablespoon honey
• 1/4 tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoon baking soda​​

​

1. Use a silicon mat or parchment paper to line a 8x8 cake pan. Place your 2 tsp of baking soda in a bowl ready to go!
2. On medium heat, stir sugar, corn syrup, honey, and water together in a saucepan. Continue to stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. 
3. When it begins to bubble, stop stirring and secure your candy thermometer to the saucepan. When it's ready, the liquid will be totally clear and the thermometer will reach 300 degrees F (149 degrees C). 
4. Immediately remove from heat and dump in baking soda. Mix with a spatula until fully incorporated and pour into your lined baking pan. Allow the honeycomb to spread on it's own and do now not touch it after you've poured it into your pan. Allow to cool at room temperature for at least one hour.
5. When it's totally cool, you can remove it from the pan and break it into pieces! I also decorated my honeycomb candy with royal icing transfers of butterflies, dragonflies, bees, and ladybugs (you can find the template for those here!)

A FEW NOTES ON ACHIEVING THE PROPER TEMPERATURE:

Don't ever increase the heat, leave it at medium to medium-high for the entire time. 

The first time I tried this recipe, I tried to let my mixture reach 300F on the candy thermometer, but it never did. After about 10 minutes of being stuck on 250F, I could smell the sugar burning and the colour of the liquid quickly turned amber in colour. At this point, there was nothing to do but to throw it out (burnt sugar is so gross, do not try to salvage it). 

The second attempt, I let it boil for only a few minutes and it didn't quite reach 250F, when I added the baking soda, it foamed but stayed in total liquid form (also unsalvageable). I just did not cook it long enough - all the water had not yet evaporated and it hadn't reached hard-crack stage.

On my third attempt, it still did not reach 300F. It stayed just above 250F for several minutes, and I watched it extremely closely. The bubbles became smaller and the liquid looked much thicker in appearance. I hung around the pot for a few more minutes keenly sniffing for the smell of burnt sugar and watching to make sure the liquid remained clear and did not amber. Using my best judgement, I removed it from the heat and added in the baking soda. This time it worked! 

So if you're mixture does not quite reach 300F don't stress about it, just keep a very close eye on it!

Today was International Women's Day, two days ago it was my 31st birthday, and last week was National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. I celebrated my birthday, and acknowledged International Women's Day on Instagram with my "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" cookie. But National Eating Disorder Awareness Week came and went and I completely ignored it - but why? I'm a woman and I addressed International Women's Day, I'm also a former sufferer of eating disorders, but I didn't address it at all. I have 38,000+ followers on Instagram, and I should use that platform to talk about important things - even if they make me a bit uncomfortable. So I'm going to address it here, for the first time outside of my immediate family and closest friend group.

From the ages of 21-25 I was plagued by disordered eating habits. I swung between extreme phases of raging bulimia, anorexia, and obsessive exercising. I was clinically depressed, had terrible body dysmorphia, and severe anxiety which occasionally bordered on panic disorder. I would be up every night until 2am binging and purging, then go to bed, and wake up at 5am so I could run 10 kilometres before I had to be at work or school. I WAS A MESS and I looked it too. I constantly had open cuts across my knuckles from where they repetitively hit my teeth, my cheeks were always puffy, and my hair became very thin and brittle. I also developed terrible Irritable Bowel Disorder (it does run in my family, and that's what I'd tell people), although the actual reason I developed it was because of my binging and purging - I had literally destroyed all the healthy bacteria in my digestive system. Every time I ate, I'd get terrible abdominal pain and bloating, which in turn would encourage more purging. It's a very vicious, disgusting cycle of shame, and it took me years to recover from the IBS. So many people think eating disorders are all about vanity and physical appearance, and that's definitely a factor. But more often, it's a physical manifestation of a mental illness, such as depression, severe stress or anxiety, in an attempt to gain control over an aspect of your life. Amazingly, it didn't affect my school work - that was something else I was able to keep control over.

(The areas I did not have control over was my personal and family life. I went through a very bad breakup at 21, and there was extreme dysfunction within my household that had yet to become even more painful. I literally had panic attacks trying to get out of my car to go inside after coming home from work/school. But that's a story for another time!)

After nearly a year of dealing with this on my own and only getting worse, I sought help. I went to therapy, and spoke candidly with my doctor. My therapist was not very encouraging of me taking anti-depressants, but let me tell you - they literally saved my life. They got me to a stable place mentally, where I could then begin to deal with the issues I had been going though. The stigma that revolves around taking anti-depressants is similar to the stigma of mental illness (aka it's bad). And they certainly didn't numb my brain or anything like that, in fact, everyday became a sun-shiny wonderful day and I was so genuinely happy again.

I was also lucky enough to have an incredibly supportive, insightful mom holding my hand through my absolute worst years (2012 was by far the sickest, worst year of my life). By the time I was 25 (2014), I was pretty much completely recovered physically. The full mental recovery was much more difficult, but for the last few years, I've been in a really excellent place - I met my now-fiancé, we bought and renovated a house together, and now we're getting married in December.

I was told by a professional that eating disorders on average have a lifespan of 11 years (from the first manifestation of it, until full recovery is achieved); it's now been 10 years since I began my struggle, and it's really shaped who I've become. I'm much more confident, happy, emotionally mature, but also a bit more unforgiving (I take my relationships very seriously, if it's not a two way street, I'm not going to travel on it - or I'm at least going to travel on it extremely cautiously). The last few years of baking has really helped reshape my relationship with food, and was incredibly effective in helping me channel my energy in a productive and creative way.

I posted my "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" cookie this morning for International Women's Day because it was one of my favourite shows growing up and she was one of the first strong feminist role models on TV at the time. Buffy fearlessly fought and defeated vampires and demons in a literal sense, and that's an encouraging metaphor for so many women who have their own demons to fight. 

So thank you for reading along! If you're going through something similar, please don't hesitate to reach out if you wanna chat :)

My three younger siblings are my very best friends, so it wasn't even a question that they would each be in my Bridal Party; before I even got engaged they knew they would be my Bridesmaids & Bridesman! Don't get me wrong, we weren't always best friends; there's a seven year age gap between me (the eldest) and Sophie (the youngest), and that makes a huge difference when you're 15 and 8 years old.  We all had completely different interests and personalities (we still do!), and man did we fight. So, thank god we grew up!*

(*and by "Growing Up", I mean we ALL put in a LOT of very hard work for years.)

When I think of what I want my future wedding photos to look like, the pictures that I'll have of me with my three Bridal Party members will also be "siblings-only photos", and that is just so meaningful to me! I can't wait to gain new family members and start a family of my own, but, Em D & S will always be my OG siblings - the 4 Radcliffe kids - we grew up together, experienced the same tough times together, and celebrated in each other's milestones together. 

Even though they already knew they'd be in my Bridal Party, I still wanted to ask properly! I made them each a Red Velvet painted portrait cookie, Emma and Sophie each got a pair of gold knot earrings from The Jewelry Bx on Etsy, David got gold knot cufflinks from PerfectCufflinks on Etsy, they each got a Diamond Pen from ElliesPaperie on Etsy, and a handmade crystal soap from Love Your Suds (her soaps are actually amazing!! And also, she's one of my best friends in real life!) 

Check out the photos below of each of their gift boxes!

Last weekend, my fiancé and I had a mini Engagement shoot at our house! Now, we don't actually live in the house; we purchased it 2.5 years ago as a joint investment, and spent 3 full months renovating the main floor and the upstairs (this house was seriously outdated). Most of the renovations were cosmetic updates, but it was still SO MUCH WORK. We now rent the house out (everything except for the separate basement suite), and our tenant just so happens to be a professional photographer and uses the main living space in the house as a home-based studio! This house has been such a major project for the both of us, it just made total sense to have our engagement shoot in the place we've put so much love (sweat, tears, and blood) into. And ever since our tenants moved in, we've been gutting and completely refiguring the basement, so we still spend almost every weekend at the house working! We even had a super fun little shoot in the in-progress basement!