Caramel apple cake

It's my last day at work today and in time honoured tradition I have baked a few cakes for all the guys at work, this is the first time I have made this particular one - "Caramel Apple Cake", I picked up the recipe sheet from a local Waitrose, its pretty simple and blooming delicious with a nice cuppa tea.

Ingredients

300g (3 large) bramley cooking apples (peeled, cored and diced)
125g unsalted, softened butter
397g (1 tin) carnation caramel
2 eggs
225g self raising flour
2 tsp cinammon
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp demerara sugar

Method

1 - Preheat oven to 160 and grease and line a 7inch cake tin
2 - Whisk with an electric mixer the butter and 225g caramel together
3 - Add the 2 eggs and beat together
4 - Sift in the flour, cinammon and baking powder and mix well
5 - Stir in the apple and milk and spoon into the cake tin
6 - Sprinkle over the demerara sugar and bake in the oven for 1 hour
7 - Once cooled, gently heat the rest of the caramel and pour over the top of the cake!

little sis got hitched

Just over a week ago my little sister got hitched, I have been patiently waiting to write this blog for over a year now, Katy & Martin got married at the Tithe Barn in our parents village of Lenham, the wedding theme was Recycling and so there was lots of crafting involved, so here goes....

First off, lets talk flowers, Katy had heard from a friend who got married last year, that they picked all their flowers from a local nursery and arranged them all by themsleves, so of course you might remember that I went on a bridal bouquet and buttonhole course earlier this year, well that was all in preparation for the big day! The Friday before the wedding, Katy, Mum and I headed down to Blooming Greens to pick all our wild flowers, it costs £50 per bucket and they advised we would need 3 buckets to allow for one bridal bouquet and 10 table arrangements, it was such a lovely thing to do and I loved the fact the flowers were all seasonal we did it all by ourselves ....

Next up is the beautiful wedding cake and dessert.... My amazingly talented mum made the wedding cake, and my god didnt it look stunning and trust me it tasted divine!!! The cake consisted of 3 tiers, each comprising 4 layers of victoria sponge cake, butter cream and homemade strawberry jam (thanks to Diana in the village)

Katy & Martin decided they wanted fresh strawberries and cream for dessert, but also opted for these gorgeous assortment of different flavours of meringue kisses, made by the exremely talented Meringue Girls, check out their website, they recently made meringues for the opening of the new Picadilly Cath Kidston store....

Next up, the favours, I saw these bride and groom pegs on pinterest ages ago, and fell in love, so did Katy, we wanted to incorporate them into the wedding somehow, Katy decided to use them to fasten the pic n mix favours bag and attach their wedding compilation CD to the bag, cute or what?? Martin also had a stamp made to match their invites.... and a very lovely talented guy who i met through work, Andrew, very kindly made the crate out of salvaged crate, hopefully Katy & Martin can use it as a herb garden.....

Last up, thought you might like to see a few snaps of the venue and the very happy couple.... (Martins Dad, Mick made the Mr & Mrs sign, very clever man!!) and my Mum and Nan Violet made all the pretty bunting.... what an amazing day, epic wedding never to be forgotten....

Last up, thank you very much to Emma's Fabric Studio for lending us the crochet eyes for the tractors, they really make this photo...

shop of the week - Accessorize

I am absolutely loving Accessorize this week, look at all these lovely things i found.....
firstly i need this tan preppy backpack, £35 in my life, especially as i am going back to university in just under a month, should come in handy as a student midwife!

i love the trend at the moment for staking rings, but this one caught my eye, love the blue stone and the bamboo effect ring £15...

who doesn't love a statement necklace?? i particularly love this Rio Ultimate Necklace, £22 as it has lots of different pretty colours, and I could easily mix and match it with all my summer clothes

and finally another bag, pink - tick, laser cut out - tick, pretty girly satchel - tick Cutwork Pretty pink satchel £35

GBBO 2014

In ode to the new series of The Great British Bake Off airing last night, this post is exclusively dedicated to all things baking.....

First off, I am dieing to try out this Banana Peanut Butter Doughnut cake I saw Simon Rimmer making on Sunday Brunch a couple of weeks back, what is there not to like.... check out the recipe here 

Talking all things Bake off, I have absolutely fallen in love with this country style apron from John Lewis £18

Next up, of course the iconic KitchenAid £429.95, so we can all pretend we are actually in the bake off tent, Mary Berry eat your heart out, my personal favourite is this Pistachio Green colour, but there are 12 other colour options... let me know your favourite

Who doesn't love a kitchen gadget, check out this dual purpose board, it features measurement displays on the face and cooking conversions, i also like the graphic style, big thumbs up, £20 John Lewis

There are lots of cute and quirky measuring cup sets out in the shops at the moment, I am slightly addicted and already have 3 different sets, but these Polly Pantry's birdy cups, £18 John Lewis really are too cute, how am i going to resist?

Hopefully the return of the GBBO has inspired you all to give baking a go, but of course we all need a pretty cake stand to display our goods, and you cant beat this classic Royal Albert country rose cake stand, £50 or try e-bay for vintage versions

Last but by no means least, did you really think I could miss Catk Kidston out, I love the clifton rose range, but especially this vintage looking flour-shaker / dredger £8.....