Weekending

A wet blustery weekend.   Just Mr J and me at home, while The Scout and Miss B were camping. Election Day too on Saturday.
Here's what I got up to:

• Homemade pizza for Saturday nights's dinner, made by Mr J - I love it when I don't have to cook.  He did learn that less is better when it comes to putting jalapeno's on pizza.
• Baking - One Pot Spiced Apple Cake from Annabel Langbein - here's the recipe

INGREDIENTS

3 large apples, peeled, cored, quartered and then sliced
250g butter
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs, lightly whisked
2 ½ cup plain flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon powder
1 cup sultanas
½ cup walnuts

Have a large pot ready on the stove top – big enough for melting butter and mixing the cake batter
in.

1. Preheat oven to 150°C. Prepare a springform cake tin by lightly greasing the sides and bottom with butter, then line the bottom with greaseproof/baking paper.
2. Melt butter in a large pot. Once melted, remove from the heat and stir in the apple pieces.
3. Stir to coat apples with butter.
4. Add sugar and eggs, and stir lightly to mix.
5. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.
6. Also add sultanas and walnuts.
7. Stir to mix until the mixture is wet – do not over mix but just enough so that the flour and mixed through and wet. The mixture should not be ‘smooth’.
8. Pour mixture into prepared cake tin, level the top out and bake for 1 hour and 20 mins, or until the cake is cooked (test by inserting a skewer into the middle of the cake – cake is cooked if skewer comes out clean).
9. Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave the cake in the tin for 5 minutes before removing onto a cake rack to cool.  You could dust the top with some icing sugar once the cake is cooled if you like.

• Read Paris Letters, a beautiful autobigraphy about a woman who packed up her life in America to travel,  met a Polish man in Paris, and discovered life in the slow lane.
• Started cutting and sewing for SewSewModern 6 - yes I joined another swap, this one is due to be posted in the New Year.
• Hand sewed the binding down on the ironing caddy and attached the buttons.  One Christmas present finished.
• Played with all the envelopes I have received to date in the SWAK Swap, only another 10 or so to arrive.

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend - one week to go and then it is school holidays here.  Looking forward to slowing down a little.