Our Blog: The Third Year

Assalamu Alaikum everyone!

Subhana'Allah! It's hard to believe this day has arrived, and that we have posted every single Friday... for three whole years!! Each year we have done a post similar to this one, talking about the year we've completed and sharing our experiences and lessons learnt. So if you would like to see them here are the First and Second years. That is what this last post will be on, insha'Allah.

It is sad to say that this is our last post, for the foreseeable future, but who knows, we may start again someday. We will also list some of our favourite posts insha'Allah, like we've done every year, in case you're interested and would like to take a look.

Alhamdulillah, at least for the first 6 months of this year, we were more organised than the previous years, masha'Allah! We had most of the posts written up and scheduled before Friday, which was a nice achievement, alhamdulillah. We found it harder to do so in the later months and have decided that now is a good time to end our blogging journey. It has been an interesting and enjoyable experience. We hope that our blog continues to bring joy and inspiration to anyone who stumbles across it, insha'Allah! You can of course continue to follow us on Instagram @craftymuslimahs if you would like.

Bakes and Drinks

This year we did more drinks than before, so that was fun to share, and baking is something we do so often (Maryam mostly!). Here are some of our favourites:

 Green Smoothie

Strawberry and Chocolate Milkshake

Sticky Date Loaf

Homemade Wholemeal Bread 

Mini Gingerbread Loaves

Vegan Fudge

Crafts

Here are some of the crafts we enjoyed showing:

Crochet

Book Week Characters

Journal Pages

Our Mum's Journal

DIY's

It's always fun to do a DIY for you all and show you step-by-step how we craft. Here are a few of the ones we shared this year:

Paper Fish Craft

Eid Al-Adha Card Décor

Handmade Envelope Craft

Original Story

It was so exciting (especially for Zainab!) to share an original story for the first time, masha'Allah!

You can click here if you would like to read it!

 Masha'Allah, we have also really enjoyed sharing our 2019 Summer Holiday, Maryam's Gardening posts, Sumayyah's School Projects, some Photography, Book Recommendations and a lot more! Subhana'Allah.  

Alhamdulillah it has been a fun challenge to blog consistently, and we've enjoyed it very much. We haven't been as organised as we had hoped to be this year, because a lot has been going on in our lives and in the world in general. Life is full of hard times, but the important thing is to do good with the time we have been blessed with, insha'Allah.

We hope you have enjoyed this post and all the posts we have done. If you are new here, you are of course most welcome and we hope you find inspiration from our blog! Insha'Allah, you are all well and healthy and having a great day. Now, let us not say 'farewell' but rather 'until next time, insha'Allah!'

That's all from us.


Love and Wasalaam,


Hanifah, Maryam, Zainab and Sumayyah



DIY Toilet Roll Ninja Craft

Assalamu Alaikum everyone!

Today we have a fun craft for you to try. It is easy and simple enough for even youngsters to do and is definitely one boys would like to have a go at!

So let's begin.

You will need:

toilet roll/kitchen roll

dark pen

colourful paper

glue

scissors/craft knife

Method:

Take your toilet roll (we used a long kitchen roll instead and cut it in half).

Cover it with colourful paper.

Trim off the excess paper (we first tried folding the extra paper into the toilet roll, but it got very sticky and messy. So for the other sides we trimmed it off and it looked much neater, masha'Allah).

Draw an expression on your ninja (we made ours frown as though they are ready to fight!).

Lastly, add a bandana around your ninja's forehead using a thin strip of coloured paper.

And you are done!

We hope you liked this simple craft and we will see you on Friday, insha'Allah.

Love and wasalaam,



Mixed Berry Pie Recipe

Assalamu Alaikum everyone!

It's Hanifah here with another recipe. I love baking pies, both savoury and sweet ones. This is a new recipe which I found on YouTube and decided to try out. It turned out really good masha'Allah, so I will link the video here - don't forget to mute the music! It's not an overly sweet pie and has a nice lemony zing to it. I did alter the recipe slightly - I hardly ever stick to the book!

Ingredients:-

For the Pastry you will need:

2 1/2 cups (320g) All-Purpose Flour

1 tsp. Salt

2 tbsp. Sugar

1 cup (226g) Unsalted Butter (chilled and cut into small cubes)

1 Egg, beaten

4 tbsp. Icy Water

For the Berry Filling you will need:

4 cups (600g) Frozen Berries - (I used 300g blueberries and 300g raspberries)

2/3 cup (135g) Granulated Sugar

1/4 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 cup Corn Flour

1 tbsp. Lemon Juice

Zest of 1 Lemon

1. To make the pastry, whisk together flour, sugar and salt.

2. Then add the butter cubes and use a fork to press until crumbs are formed. This took me a long time - you could use a food processor if you prefer.

3. Next add the beaten egg and the 4 tablespoons of icy water.

4. Start to combine to form a slightly crumbly dough.

5. Divide in half and wrap each in cling film.

6. Roll out and flatten using a rolling pin; then refrigerate for half an hour or more.

7. Now it's time to make the filling! Combine sugar, corn flour, cinnamon and lemon zest in a bowl.

8. Place the frozen berries in another bowl and then add the sugar mixture and lemon juice. Use a spoon or toss to combine.

9. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius, 400 degrees Fahrenheit, Gas Mark 6 and prepare a 9-inch pie pan.

10. Take out one of the pieces of dough and roll on a floured surface until it is big enough to cover your pie pan. Mine ended up breaking (probably needed more butter?) so I just sort of put it together jigsaw-style!

11. Next add the filling and refrigerate.

12. Meanwhile, take the second dough piece out of the fridge, roll out and cut into strips. Take the pie back out and create a lattice on top using the strips. I also used the excess dough to decorate the pie.

13. Bake for 20 minutes on a middle shelf. Then reduce the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, 350 degrees Fahrenheit, Gas Mark 4 and bake for another 25-30 minutes until golden-brown.

14. Allow to cool completely for a few hours. I dusted mine with icing sugar afterwards.

15. Finally remove from pie pan, slice and serve - preferably with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

I hope you liked this post and we will see you soon, insha'Allah.

Wassalam,

Hanifah