Super Easy and Insanely Moreish Apple Slice

There was a morning tea at school yesterday morning, so on Thursday night I was looking for a recipe that was a) easy; and b) produced something yummy. Hey presto! Apple slice!

There were some disgruntled family members when they realised that this was not being made for them, so I made it again tonight. It's that easy!

This is one of those recipes that is passed on from person to person because it is just so reliable and delicious. It can be served in larger pieces, with cream, as a dessert. It is a great lunchbox snack. I was given it by a friend at playgroup and have used it many times. Now I'm passing it along to you!

Ingredients

2 cups SR flour
1 cup sugar
125 g butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten *
3 apples, peeled and sliced **
Cinnamon
Extra sugar

* If you are really short on preparation time, add an extra egg - the additional liquid makes combining all the ingredients a lot easier. You'll need to add an extra 5 minutes cooking time though.
** I always find 3 apples too many, but then we usually have large-ish apples.

Method

Combine flour, sugar, butter and egg.

Press into a slice tin - I line mine with baking paper.

Layer apples on top and sprinkle with cinnamon and extra sugar. I layer my apples in rows to make it easier to cut into portions.

Bake in moderate oven for 25 - 30 minutes.

Obviously no nice and even baking going on in my oven!

This slice comes out of the oven really soft - leave in the tin to cool for about 10 minutes. Use the baking paper to carefully lift it out of the tin so that it can be cut into portions.

Enjoy!

Not much of this made it past the "cut into portions" stage!

I did do some googling to see if this recipe is already out there. It probably is! I did find a couple that were similar, but none that I thought were as easy as this is.

Apron in first photo is a Classic Half Apron from Boojiboo.
Wooden spoon and asymmetrical board are recent purchases from Pop Little boards at Piccadilly Market.
Purple mixing bowl was from a long-ago Tupperware party. I cannot explain how awesome this bowl is. It just is!

Bits and bobs

How are you?  I feel like I have been sick forever!  Gah!  I've had a very nasty cough but today has been a good day and I think I'm finally on the way to recovery.  Hooray!  I hope you've been well!

I'm working quite hard to get some things finished off so that I can concentrate on getting ready for the Herb and Pip Pop Up!  I'm very excited about being part of a pop up!  There's an awful lot going on with end of term and getting ready for Christmas too!

Here are some things that happened today -

I finished off my first (Edit: this is actually the second! Oops!) bunny since the Ashby Primary School Market Day!  I felt a bit sad about having an empty bunny tin.  It's full to overflowing now with bunny bits and I'll definitely have some ready for the Pop Up!

This bunny is heading off to Quirk!

I've also completed a custom order for the lovely Nicole from 4Poppets.  Two lined bags with internal zippered pockets.

I braved the rain this morning to rescue a parcel from the letterbox.  It contained this gorgeous package:

Isn't it lovely!

Which contained this darling dress from Naughty Shorts!  I splurged a while ago and ordered this custom tea dress.  I can't wait to wear it.  In fact, I'm planning on donning it tomorrow with some tights and a cardi!

Divine!

While on the subject of dresses, I've been asked a lot about the dress I wore to the Ashby Primary School Market Day.  It's this one (needs an iron!):

and it's a Frankie & Ray dress that I got from Quirk.  There are new ones in at Quirk, or check out Frankie & Ray at The Makery pop up at Boom Gallery this Thursday from 4 - 9pm.

For the last six days I've been playing nurse to some sad guinea pigs.

Mimi and WombatVineyNibbles

Last Wednesday I extracted a large (enormous!) grass seed from Mimi's eye and rushed her to the vet where she was thoroughly checked out and taken care of.  We were sent home with some eye ointment that I am to administer two or three times a day.  Mimi is not very enthusiastic about this! WombatVineyNibbles also has some ongoing eye issues so I have been applying some of the ointment to her eye as well, and will arrange for her to also visit the vet when I take Mimi back for a follow up appointment.

I'll be off to the vet next week too for our cat's vaccinations!

Up until today this has been our Christmas tree -

My very clever husband assembled this in our lounge room so that we would have some form of tree where we have traditionally set up the whole shebang. Last year the tree was a very sad, denuded, disaster.  We had a very new and active kitten who thought the Christmas Tree was a wonderful play thing, and that baubles were marvellous toys.  After much negotiation with the small people, today we set up the official Christmas Tree in our front room -

Ta da!  It's feeling more like Christmas now!

xx

Advent Calendars - Get Ready! Get Set!

Is your Advent Calendar at the ready?  Are you a multiple Advent Calendar household?  Has that first door already been opened?  Are you super lucky and have one that is handmade?  Are you without Advent Calendar and feel like you are missing out?  Here is a little guide to what is out there!

The original card Advent Calendars - cute ones available from Phoenix

Cute!  Cute!  Cute!  Plus reusable and therefore highly environmentally friendly.

Cadbury Chocolate Advent Calendar - here or here

It's chocolate - what's not to like?!  Especially if this is yours and not the kids'.

Smiggle Advent Calendar

My small people are sharing this one, taking in turns to open the doors and then keeping all the goodies in a bowl to be shared out turn by turn once all the doors have been opened.  They're very civilised!  And they'll have a heap of stationery goodies for school next year!

Lego Advent Calendar - available in Star Wars, Friends and City

Who doesn't love Lego?  Plus you get to add all those pieces to your Lego collection!

Benefit Countdown to Love

I love Benefit and this looks awesome!  Sadly could not find any in stock - anybody in possession of this is very very lucky!

Other Advent Calendars I've come across are the scrumptious gingerbread one from Kuna's Pure Food,  lots of very clever handmade ones involving bags and bunting, and there has been a lot of wine related ones posted across Facebook.  I'm sure there are plenty more ideas out there too!  Whether you've got an Advent Calendar at the ready or not - I hope you enjoy the lead up to Christmas!

An uninspiring purchase.

Yesterday I bought an iron.  It was exactly as interesting as it sounds.

I cannot remember the last time I ironed a piece of clothing, but I do use my iron quite a lot - for sewing.  It is invaluable when cutting out, creating neat seams and even hems.  So, no basketful of clothes waiting to be ironed for me, instead my ironing board is heavily laden with crafting items.

My ironing board in use.

An iron isn't so useful once it has developed a leak and quite frankly the holes in the plate (is there a technical term?) were looking decidedly crusty.  So yesterday when we were in the vicinity of an electrical store, in we went.

What are the defining features of an iron?  There on display were at least a dozen irons, arranged in order of price.  I looked at them (quite blankly, to be honest) for a few seconds before a very enthusiastic sales guy came to the rescue.

There followed a couple of minutes where I tried to think of something intelligent to ask whereby I could make a decision between one iron and another.

"Does this one get creases out of fabric?  Yes?  Good.  And this one?  Right."

Of course I could not ask that so really I just nodded along while he talked about pounds of steam (I think?) and about his own personal choice of the CreaseBeater X3000 (I may have made that up).  That one was up the more pricey end of the iron line-up so I am glad he did not point to that one first.  Because how did I make my decision?  I chose the one he had pointed to first.

Unlike a purchase that is actually exciting, my new iron was deposited on the kitchen table and left in its box until this afternoon, when I wanted to take a photo of it to use to illustrate this blog entry.  I now have an iron with a 2400 W Power zone, Security Auto-off, Double Anti-calc, Double Anti-scale, 0-40g Variable Steam, 130 g/in Power zone (confusing), Self Clean and Great Stability.  I'm still failing miserably at being thrilled.

Old vs New

I don't know.  Maybe this iron will be amazing.  Maybe I will form an opinion on ironing that involves more than getting creases out of fabric.  Maybe I will fall in love with this new iron so much that I will start to iron tea-towels and sheets.  I will keep you posted.

Warm brain fuzzies

Yesterday I was adding a comment on mamamia about the little pot of wonder that is Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme, when I found that I could not spell the word ‘genius’.  It’s not at all difficult now, but yesterday I had brain fuzzies due to a week of battling a virus that has travelled the length and breadth of this household.  The best attempt I made was ‘genious’ which I knew was not right, but I couldn’t decide what was not right with it.  I ended up deleting my miserable attempt and rewriting the sentence.

Later on I had a lightbulb moment and felt silly for not knowing how to spell.  Then I wondered how many people would actually have noticed.  I know that I would have noticed in the absence of brain fuzzies, and I assume that within a minute of my entering ‘genious’ somebody with a pedantic streak would have taken great delight in pointing out my lack thereof.  But without the anonymous pedant, who else would have noticed?  Not everyone notices the same things.  By why do we notice what we do?  What is the eye drawn to?

I have no idea how to answer that.

“If you notice this notice, you will notice that this notice is not worth noticing.”

The same goes when choosing fabric.  I have a pile of new acquisitions sitting on the table next to me.  I don’t think there is a predominant theme.  The majority are floral but I think that just fits in with most fabric being floral (Is this true?  Maybe just in my head?).  All of them were chosen by me out of dozens, hundreds, of other fabrics.  When I am drawn to just one fabric out of a range all with a common colour scheme and theme – why is that?

(Updated pic - don't know what went wrong the first time.)

You know what?  I don’t even need to know the answer.  I’m looking at the pile and getting a warm and fuzzy feeling.  Much better than brain fuzzies!

* The mamamia article was about trimming cuticles (or, rather, not trimming your cuticles).  If that is up your alley go here.

* Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme has been the saviour of my nails and cuticles.  I think it truly is genius.