Mmm, chocolate brownies and octopuses!

Hoorah, it's finally autumn! Don't get me wrong, I love the summer but there's no season I like more than autumn.

My top 5 autumn things:

1. pretty leaves to kick around in the streets, much to the annoyance of the street sweepers (sorry)
2. a good reason to drink more tea, you know, for warmth
3. being able to wear pyjamas and not get too hot
4. my birthday
5. staying in at night drawing in the warmth while the wind is howling outside

To get into an autumnal feel I baked some brownies today. I couldn't find a recipe I liked so I fiddled around and made one up:

175g plain chocolate broken into squares
250g butter
250g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
100g mixed nuts
50g hazelnuts
175g self raising flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
a touch of vanilla essence

1. Put the butter and chocolate in a pan and melt together over a low heat.
2. Beat the sugar and eggs together in a bowl then pour in the melted chocolate and combine.
3. Fold in the sieved flour and cocoa powder then add the nuts and the vanilla essence.
4. Bake for 35 minutes at about 180 degrees.

Woo, brownies for everyone! Nyom!

I also printed some octopus artist girl cards. I have a real octopus thing at the moment, which I'm sure will gradually pass but until then you will be bombarded with them. The cards are from an original illustration and are digitally coloured.

You can see the whole colour range here!