OMG I HAVEN'T POSTED IN AGES!!

So, I remembered the other day that I actually have a blog that I had completely neglected and forgotten about, but I'm going to take this with a pinch of salt and try to BLOG ALL THE TIME so that I don't ever forget about it again, after all it is quite a nice little place to come and share my opinions isn't it!

So, seeing as I haven't sat down and written a post in ages, I guess it would probably be best to start off by telling you all a little bit about what has been going on in my life recently!

As many of you know, it is fast approaching exam season! (I know right, where has the year gone, cos I'm sure I must have sneezed and missed it by accident!) So, sitting here, writing this, whilst listening to rather loud music, I should probably be revising or doing some sort of work because in 2 weeks time my A level exams commence, and let me tell you now - I am very scared!! I feel that, like everyone, I underestimated the course known as A levels at the beginning of the year and now it has come back to bite me in the behind - I have so much work to do! Just in case you were on the off chance wondering what courses I am doing, they are as follows: Biology (my favourite), Physics (ergh! WHAT WAS I THINKING WHEN CHOOSING THIS AS AN OPTION?!?), Geography and Maths. I do quite enjoy the atmosphere in sixth form, and on the most part, I quite enjoy my classes; the only thing I don't like is the exams we have to do.

Also recently, I have decided that I am going to try as hard as physically possible to make YouTube my full time job in the future! I just love it too much and enjoy everything about making videos! Thanks to inspiring people such as Jim Chapman, Tanya Burr, SprinkleofGlitter Louise, Zoe Sugg and many more YouTubers, it has led me to realise that most YouTubers are just genuinely down-to-earth, lovely people who pretty much everyone would want to be friends with. So, I have made a game plan: I am going to really try hard over the next few weeks and get good grades in my AS exams; then, next year in A2, I am going to work hard all year long and not leave revising and doing all my work to the last minute! After this, I am going to take a gap year and just enjoy life, spending more time doing YouTube and hopefully growing my channels. At the end of this year, my dream is to travel America and visit loads of cool places whilst enjoying the freedom of life after being in education for over 15 years. This is then when it will be the time to consider my options and figure out whether YouTube is substantial enough and has grown enough for me to be able to carry on with it; or maybe it would be a good idea for me to go and study at university - hence why I need to try as hard as possible to get good A level grades, just incase!

My passion for this plan has also been a problem as of late, as it has made me believe that this will all be possible, and it has slightly taken me off the main rails of A level study. Not saying that I have completely given up, it just takes up a lot of my time doing A levels and has kind of emotionally drained me recently. So this is why I need to step up my game and get back on track - get those grades, do those things I want to do, and most importantly - enjoy life to the full.

This is my plan and I hope all of you know what you want to do with your lives to make them enjoyable too!

Thanks for reading

Jim

Salted Caramel Cupcakes!

So, hey guys, this is another food related post.
You may or may not know that it was my birthday recently, so naturally, around this time I was busy in the kitchen baking! I needed some inspiration for what cupcakes would be good to make and nothing really caught my eye... until... One day I was watching one of Jim and Tanya's videos and they introduce their friend Kate Gowing's lifestyle blog and showed one of these 'salted caramel cupcakes' she had made. Immediately I knew that these were what I wanted to make, so out I went and bought the ingredients!

As this is someone else's recipe that I haven't made any significant changes to, I am going to link the posts where the recipes for the cupcakes, icing and caramel can be found on Kate's blog - it really is worth a looking at anyhow - and I will just pop a few of the pics that I took of my finished products below. It honestly is an amazing recipe, and is so easy to make - the caramel was surprisingly easy to whip up also, especially for such a useful and delicious ingredient that can be used for so many different things: coffee, cakes, ice cream topping etc.

So, go and have a lookie at Kate's Blog and I will see you soon!! Thanks!

Kate's Blog 
Her Salted Caramel Recipe
Her Cupcakes and icing recipe

My Cupcakes:

How to make Eggs Benedict!

Hi guys!

So, this is my first cookery post on my blog and I hope you like it!

I was inspired to do this recipe by the Sorted Food guys who are awesome; they have a YouTube channel where they do loads of cooking videos, so go and check them out: http://www.youtube.com/user/sortedfood

I put my own little spin on this recipe to enable it to be made more easily at home and with ingredients that most households are likely to have. I did this on a slice of bread, as it is more likely (and just as good) that you will have this in your cupboard than with the traditional base of half a bread muffin. 

The ultimate satisfaction is at the end, when you get to cut through the layers of bacon, egg and hollandaise sauce and the egg oozes out!

** Tip: I made this recipe to include 3 egg yolks, as it is always easier to make the hollandaise sauce with more egg yolk than with less **

You will need:

A slice of bread

A few rashers of bacon

2 whole eggs

A pan of simmering water

White Wine vinegar for the boiling water

For the Hollandaise Sauce:

3 egg yolks

1 tsp White Wine vinegar

2 tsp lemon juice

75g butter, melted

Salt and pepper 

What to do:

1. Get a pan of water over a hob and heat until simmering

2. Whisk the egg yolks in a glass bowl over the pan of hot water - make sure that the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water!

3. Add the dashes of white wine vinegar and lemon juice and continue to whisk.

4. Once the egg yolk mix is slightly lighter in colour (this doesn't take too long after the previous step) start to slowly add the melted butter, whilst still stirring - you can add this a little at a time.

5. The mixture should now start to thicken - once it resembles the consistency of a loose mayonnaise, take off the heat and add the salt and pepper.

6. Now for the fun part - tasting! Taste the mixture and you can now add more lemon juice, salt or pepper to your liking.

7. Into the boiling water still on the hob, you can add a dash of the vinegar and then crack a couple of eggs and begin to poach them to your liking (about 5 mins for a medium-hard yolk)

8. Put a slice of bread into the toaster and start to grill a couple of rashers of bacon.

9. Once the toast is ready, the eggs and bacon should be finished. Lay the slice of toast on your plate of choice (this can be a pretty plate if you so desire) and then put the rashers of bacon ontop.

10. Using a ladel, scoop the eggs out of the water and drain off all water. Place eggs on top of the bacon and then generously drizzle over your hollandaise sauce.

Enjoy!!

** Tip: You can add some finely chopped shallots to the egg yolks at the same time as the lemon juice and vinegar and then some shredded tarragon once off the heat, to make béarnaise sauce which can be served with steak (or is really nice to dip crusty bread into I seem to find) **

As featured on my cookery blog: recipease - http://recipease-food.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/eggs-benedict.html

Good Idea!!

Hi guys, I realised I do not make posts that often (naughty me) and had a long think about what I could do to motivate myself to do more. I spent a while on this thought and eventually came up with this idea: I am going to make this into a lifestyle blog about many different aspects! One thing that I am very passionate about is cooking and so I thought that this would be a great way of sharing some recipes with you guys and motivating myself to make more posts. I also plan to do the odd male grooming and fashion posts, where I will recommend good offers, things that are in trend and also how to style things. I may even do a few reviews on products that I really like!

I feel that by doing some of these things, they will persuade me into writing more posts, but also (especially the latter two) link in nicely with my YouTube channels.

I hope you are as excited about this idea as much as I am! You can be expecting a lot more posts very soon!

Au revoir for now!

Surreal experience!

Last night I got the chance to share a live broadcast with the one and only Jim Chapman on younow.com! It was awesome, however I was in such shock that I didn't get to say everything that I wanted to which was unfortunate... Nevertheless, I gave my YouTube channel a shout out and got a few extra subscribers out of it which was cool. YouNow is a really cool website that I would recommend to lots of people, both to watch people live broadcast and also do some yourself. In the not too distant future, I plan to start doing some YouNow broadcasts so make sure to keep an ear out for when I will be starting them. Feel free to go and become a fan of me on the website so that you can get notified of when I do start a broadcast! (http://www.younow.com/users/Jim.Knight) Also, make sure you go and check out Jim Chapman's channel cos he is awesome!!!!!!!!! (http://www.youtube.com/user/j1mmyb0bba)

Don't forget to check out my channel too if you haven't already!! (http://www.youtube.com/user/thejimvlogs)

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you again soon!

New Videos!

Hi guys! Its currently 1.21am in the morning and I can't get to sleep as I am editing videos and uploading them to the tube ;)

I realise that I need to get to grasps with blogging so that I can get used to it and include it in my routine, so I just wanted to quickly say that I have uploaded new videos recently so go check them out!

Thanks

Jim

First Post

Hi and welcome to Jimmericks the blog. This is the corresponding blog to my YouTube channels which I passionately run. I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog which relates to my channels and gives you a chance to see more of my content in different ways!

Thanks for stopping by

Jim