FIRST IMPRESSIONS: ZOEVA ROSE GOLDEN BRUSH SET



When I first set eyes on the ZOEVA brush sets I knew instantly I would end up buying one of them, 100 blog review posts later I now have them. They got delivered today, I used them to do my makeup today and I have to admit I love them, I cannot fault anyone of the brushes. I have not yet used the wing liner brush as I use liquid eyeliner with an applicator, but I'm sure I will find a use for it in the future. I chose the Rose Golden Brush Set as I absolutely loved the Rose gold against the brown, its just heaven. I am a sucker for the aesthetics of a product rather than the use of it, but I'm so so happy I finally ordered this set. There are 8 brushes in the set, 5 being for the face and the other 3 being for eyes. My favourites so far are the Silk Finish Brush, Concealer Buffer Brush, Face shape Brush and the Petit Crease Brush. At the moment I cannot do a full review of the brushes as I have only used them once - but I have to say they feel so so soft, it was a dream to apply my foundation, I use the Real Techniques Expert Face Brush to apply foundation and I was always too apprehensive to change foundation brushes as I love it so much but now I have used the ZOEVA Silk Finish Brush it has replaced it. Sorry.. aha. ALSO, I cannot forget the pouch it came in, oh my god, it is so beautiful. Definitely using it as my makeup bag. Everything about this Rose Golden Brush Set is beautiful. I cannot fault it. I bought it from beautybay as they had free next day delivery - which is a bonus as I hate waiting for parcels.
The collection contains: 
Powder Brush, 
Silk Finish Brush, 
Face Shape Brush,
 Luxe Sheer Cheek Brush,
 Concealer and Buffer Brush, 
Soft Definer Brush, 
Petit Crease Brush, 
Wing Liner Brush. 
The ZOEVA Rose Golden Brush Set £56.95 from BeautyBay.com, they also have their own website. 

THANK YOU FOR READING XOXO

Countryside Gallery





Baking Chocolate Cookie Sandwiches



Hey guys!! I thought I would do a blog post on these dark chocolate cookie sandwiches!

This recipe is Diary Free - as I am lactose intolerant, I will be listing all of the ingredients with a method and some photos I took while making them!!

You will need: 
 125g or 4 1/2 oz butter,
75g or 2 3/4 oz icing sugar
115g or 4 oz plain flour
40g or 1 1/2 cocoa powder

Filling:
100g or 3 1/2 oz broken pieces of chocolate (of your flavour)
140g or 5 oz butter ( I used diary free butter)
140g or 5 oz icing sugar



MAKING THE COOKIES:


STEP ONE:
 Preheat your oven to 160 degrees / 325 F' / Gas mark 3. Line two Baking trays with baking paper. ( I greased the paper with butter)

STEP TWO:
Place your butter in a bowl with your icing sugar and beat together until it becomes light and fluffy. Sift the flour and the cocoa powder into the mixture slowly to form a dough, do not add them all at once, slowly add the plain flour first, then add the cocoa powder.


STEP THREE:
Place your dough between 2 sheets of baking paper ( make sure your paper is big enough for the whole dough to rolled out on)  and roll out the dough until it 3mm / 1/8 thick. Cut out the dough with any size cutters you would like, or any design (I just used 4cm cutters) Then place them on your lined baking trays/ tray



STEP FOUR:
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until they are firm to touch. Leave them to cool for 3 minutes ( on a wire rack to cool completely)

MAKING THE FILLING:


 STEP FIVE:
While the cookies are cooling, you will need to use a small saucepan and a glass bowl, you will need to use to melt the chocolate.
Break your chocolate up into pieces, use your hands to warm up the chocolate if its too hard to break, then place into the glass bowl, add some cold water to the saucepan and then put the bowl on the saucepan. ( make sure your bowl doesn't touch the bottom of the saucepan otherwise it will not melt)
Using a wooden spoon keep moving the chocolate about when it is simmering, so then it will not burn to the bottom of the bowl, this will only take 4-6 minutes.  But do not leave it unattended.
Once the chocolate has melted, place the bowl to the side and pour the water in the saucepan away  (make sure to use oven gloves to do this as the bowl and saucepan will be very hot)



STEP SIX:
When the chocolate is cooling down, place the butter in a bowl and beat until fluffy, then sift the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add the cooled chocolate ( how much you want, depending how much chocolate flavour you want the filling to have) and  beat until combined - if you want to addd chocolate extract add this now, but it is not essential.



STEP SEVEN:
Sandwich the cookies until firm with the chocolate filling inside of them - you will need to use a spoon for this. Make sure the filling doesn't fall out of the two cookies. ( You can change the filling to normal butter icing, you could also use food colouring to make the filling stand out)
As I had a lot of spare melted chocolate I decided to drizzle it over my cookie sandwiches to make them look more nice! ( this is an optional part) you could also dust over icing sugar but its up to you.



I hope you have enjoyed this post,

My cookie sandwiches tasted lovely, I hope yours do too.
If you make these don't forget to tag me on Instagram and Twitter if you do:

Instagram Link
Twitter Link

Just a disclaimer, My cookie sandwiches were lovely to my taste, but if you don't like the taste of them I am sorry!
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