It's the new year and most people are off to do as much exercise as they possibly can by getting hot and sweating out the calories consumed over the festive season, but did you know after heat from exercise stress is the second biggest trigger for sweating! If you're wondering how let me paint a picture for you, say you've got to deliver a presentation in front of the board of directors at your company, or you're off to an interview for your dream job...stressful? Exactly I'm feeling stressed just imagining them! The difference between the sweat from heat and the sweat from stress, is that stress has a more rapid onset and smells much worse, making it harder to control. NIVEA Stress Protect deodorant is proven to minimise this stress sweat and helps reduce the formation of body odour and it does this with Stress Protect Activies and a Zinc Complex, but with added avocado oil to help care and moisturise the skin.
I am the queen of getting stressed there are no two ways about it, I somehow always seem to get myself in a mental pickle and I'll get hot and flustered easily in certain situations. Throw that and me creating Holly Bell's cake from the Great British Bake off into the mixing bowl, and you'd probably agree you've got a receipe for diaster. Never the less I do love a good challengnge and NIVEA decided to really test my baking abilities by pushing the boundaries with a White Chocolate, Lemon and Macadamia Genoise Layer Cake. If I'm going to be completely honest I read that I was required to make a cake and thought it'd be a breeze, then I looked at the receipe... I had 5 stages to complete and I'm in no way lying I started at 12pm and finished at 3pm! Admiteddly I did consume a vast amount of tea and played with the cat in that time, but it truly did test my patience.
As the time pushed on I started to get more stressed because my boyfriend works split shifts, he was going on a break soon and I wasn't done! I was getting in a pickle about over beating the cake mixture and not chopping the macademia nuts small enough, I think I got more stressed by the fact this was taking me far longer than I'd planned it to. Stage 1 I'd had to make the mousse first, which I've never created before so I'd started off trying so hard I kept reading the receipe just to make sure I'd got it right,
Stage 2 Next was the Genoise sponge... my word non stop whisking and doing lots of bits at the same time was really stressful, I was really worried that the mixture didn't look quite right and that I hadn't followed it all correctly.
Stage 3 Making the Lemon Syrup was by far my favorite stage.... purely because it took a few minutes and was the easiest!
Stage 4 I then had to make the Praline and for some reason I found this quite tough, because I was extremely frightened I'd burn the sugar or that the nuts might not be chopped enough.
Stage 5 Was the cake assembling. Initially I thought I'd done this wrong but the more I carried on the better it started to look.... plus I knew the finish line was close!
The cake was finally done and I was ready for that needed cup of tea, the teapot came out my lovely friend joined me and we indulged. To be honest I was truly worried how this was going to taste, but to my surprise It was so yummy! 
What do you get if you combine tea, a tea pot, vintage tea cups and some delicious cake... you get an absolutely wonderful afternoon!
