Mark This Book Monday: ARC Review of Top Ten Clues You're Clueless by Liz Czukas!!

Hey guys!

Since I do still have a bit of a backlog of books to be reviewed, I'm gonna be doing two reviews per day this week, and so for the second Mark This Book Monday of this week, I have an ARC review.

This was another of those approved ARC requests from Harper Teen on Edelweiss that do feel like a bit of a mirage, because I haven't been approved by them for any other of their books since. But, I got them and I'm very happy and thankful that I did! As an ARC it is also counted towards my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge!

Top Ten Clues You're Clueless by Liz Czukas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read and loved Ask Again Later, the first book by Liz Czukas, and even these are not my usual kind of books, I've found myself quite loving and enjoying both AAL and this one!

Chloe is the main character in this one, and she seems to be your rather nerdy and adorable but rather clueless and apparently friendless girl. She works part time at a grocery store and has a crush on a co-worker. She's diabetic (which was a nice inclusion, presented as normal but also shown as something to take seriously) and she has to work on Xmas Eve.

This is contemporary, and contemporary fluff at it, but I cannot help it, the way Liz writes her characters, I simply fly through the book, chuckling here and there and having a lovely break from whatever else is going on around. Even if this wasn't as full of banter and the relationships between the characters weren't as fantastic as they were in AAL, they were still very well done.

There's a lil bit of a mystery to solve, but the main focus is on Chloe and the relationship between her and her co-workers, before and after being accused of theft.

I think the setting and the time frame, just a few hours in a day, that made for a different enough read, it might have also made it a bit more on the light side of character development and that might have made it harder to connect and care for all the "younglings".

Still it was fun, adorable and heartwarming, and with the setting being Christmas Eve, it can also be considered a cute holiday read! Well deserved 3.5 stars for this one!



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Monday Munchies: Chocolate with Fluff and Nutella Cupcakes!

Hey there! Late Monday today entry today, cause I've gone to have breakfast with my friends with uni (I took some carrot cake cupcakes with me for them) and then came home for lunch and then straight to work, so I'm just sharing my first improvisation for cupcakes that I made for my youngest nephew, Alex!

So for Monday Munchies: Chocolate with fluff & nutella cupcakes! For the base cupcakes, I used the chocolate recipe from Alma's Cupcakes (from the little booklet with recipes that she gave us during the beginners' course).

Chocolate with fluff & nutella cupcakes!

Makes 12

Ingredients:

- 115 gr butter, room temperature

- 220 gr granulated sugar

- 2 medium sized eggs

- 240 gr plain flour

- 30 gr cocoa powder (without sugar)

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- 120 ml semi skimmed milk

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

- Preheat the oven at 180ºC (350ºF). Line the cupcake pan with paper cases.

- Cream the butter with the sugar till whitens and is well mixed. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each one till it's well combined.

- Sift together the flour, with the baking powder and cocoa. In a glass mix the milk with the vanilla extract.

- Add half the flour to the mixture and mix well, then add half the milk and beat till well combined again, then add the other half of the flour, beat well and lastly, add the rest of the milk.

- Distribute the mixture on the paper cases, till about 2/3. Bake for about 22 to 25 minutes, or till a toothpick comes out clean,

- Let cool in the cupcake pan for about 5 mins, and then place in a rack to let cool completely.

Once cooled off, with an apple corer, take a bit off each cupcake, taking care not to get to the bottom of the cupcake!

Then fill them up (not till the very top!) with Fluff! (Marshmallow cream, yum!), I used a pipping bag to fill them up.

Once they're full with Fluff, it's time to put back the chocolate bit we took out, though the Fluff might pop it out a bit! To fix that, I melted a bit of Nutella (I did it in the oven, since it was hot from baking them), and I used it to cover the cupcakes, to keep the chocolate bit in and to finish it off! I added a few snowflake sprinkles!

They looked pretty nice, and Alex absolutely loved them!!