Eye candy

There's something very precious indeed about a day off.

A day all to yourself.

A day when you can indulge yourself.

A day when you choose to ignore all but the most necessary of housework and laundry.

A day when you find yourself making beautiful things worth sharing.

A day when you can make your bloggy friends scroll down a billion times to find out what the heck Mrs Moog is whittering on about ;o)

The first day since waaaay before Easter when your day off plans have not gone awry.

The next bit may shock you........I haven't knit even so much as a single solitary stitch today!!

I know!!!!!

Who would have thought it?

I have, however, baked.

You HAVE to make this - no really - you HAVE to! Another perfect recipe for those manky eating apples.

Believe it or not this is an apple cake. An incredibly simple, awesomely deeeeelicious, crumbly-sweet-bestwhenstillwarmonlyatinybitleftthreehourslaterthankstoMrMoog-apple cake.

I found the recipe on the internet. I was terribly hi-tech and took the laptop into the (tiny) kitchen (being too eager to stop and write it down) and followed the recipe 'live'.

Unfortunately, my techno-tastic abilities stopped there and I forgot to save the link - although I did remember the recipe and wrote it down ten minutes after it came out of the oven (do wish I could link to the brilliant cook who posted this recipe but I've resurfed and can't find it).

Here's how to make it:

8oz self-raising (all purpose) flour

pinch salt

1 heaped teaspoon ground mixed spice

3oz margarine

10oz sugar OR 6oz if you use manky eating apples

8oz peeled and sliced apples (cooking or eating)

1 egg

Cream sugar and marg. Beat in the egg. Add the flour, salt, spice and chopped up apple. Mix together. This makes a stiff mixture and at this point I lost the faith and added a splashette of milk.

Okay, all topsy turvy in recipe terms ....by now you should have preheated your oven to gas 4 or 350degrees or whatever your oven does AND you would of course have greased and lined a 7 to 8 inch round cake tin.

Then you can turn that big glob of far too dry looking appley cake mix into your pre-prepared tin.

Once it starts to brown on top place some greaseproof paper on top to stop it burning (this bit REALLY worked!!!) and let it cook for 1 to 1 and a quarter hours. Stick something pointy into your cake and if it comes out clean it's cooked....if not give it a little longer.

When I took mine out of the oven I immediately sprinkled sugar over the top.

Have a slice with a cup of tea about twenty minutes later. You might as well cos by the time the bu**ers have been home for five minutes there'll be none bl***y left ;o)

Luckily I have four more manky apples just a-waiting my bakerly skills tomorrow!

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Remember that bit about not knitting?

You'll be mighty relieved to know I haven't gone a whole day entirely yarn free. However, I must warn you this has not been a day for posh and natural delicious sock-yarn. Today has been a man-made kind of a day.

Today, thanks to me spending far too much time looking at crochety loveliness on Ravelry in the wee small hours of this morning, I have got my ergonomic hook and my big posh Primarni-darling it only cost me £6!!!!!!CathKidstonlookeelikee (IMHO)-bag of acryliano yarn out of mothballs and have exercised my carpel tunnels with a mahoosive bit of grannying.

Some hours later I have two of these ten inch squares done and another three on the way. We're heading for a blanket here. At least that's the plan!

This next photo is an entirely gratuitous shot to show you just how perfect my little world is ;o)

Happy hooking!

xxx