Sunday 7 April 2013

Cake, cake and more cake ... and cocktails

 


So this Saturday I attended a Blogger Bake Sale at The Bumpkin which was organised by lovely Rosie from The Londoner. Baking and eating cakes for a great cause whilst getting to know fellow bloggers - sounds like a pretty good afternoon to me.

I chose to make my favourite Apple Tarte Tatin (my mum's recipe). 1) It is extremely delicious. 2) Extremely easy to make which is important when you have a very lively toddler to look after (no time for haute cuisine here)...Well, actually, I was quite lucky this time as my mum just happened to be visiting (not a regular occurrence as she lives abroad so obviously very exciting), which meant that I was able to make my cake in peace. No washing up! And have a long long shower! And paint my nails whilst sipping coffee and getting updates from the latest Vogue issue (my mum is a fashion designer amongst many things). Pure luxury these days!

For a medium size cake (approx. 23cm) you will need

5 sweet apples (I use golden delicious)
Puff pastry (bought mine ready made ...)
Half a glass of caster sugar
1 tea spoon of butter (I use unsalted)

Roll out your pastry so it's about 5mm thin.
Make a caramel syrup by melting butter, sugar and 3 tbsp of water in a pan. Once the syrup is brown, add peeled and sliced apples into the syrup and simmer for about 10min until apples soak up the syrup. Afterwards, place the apples into a baking tray and cover with the pastry, tucking the edges down inside the tin to encase the filling. If there is a gap between your pastry and the tray just fill in the edges with some extra pastry.

Prick the top of the tarte with a fork and put it into a preheated oven (about 180C -200C depending on your oven) and cook for around 15-20min until the pastry is golden.
Once the tarte in cooked, gently invert onto a serving plate. Make sure that the serving plate is larger than the baking tray.


Here is my creation in all its glory



The English Garden cocktail - super delicious
With lovely Adeline from prettyordinaryaddy
And, of course, lovely Rosie from The Londoner
 

The whole event went brilliantly. The conversations, cakes and cocktails were flowing and the money was generously donated for charities.

Although today I just cannot look at anything sweet ... hopefully, for my own benefit, I will stay away from all things cake and sugar ... at least until tomorrow!




2 comments:

  1. Looks great!! Such a shame I couldn't make it. Will attempt your cake though x

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  2. Oh, I wish we had something like this in NY!! And you look fab btw. Xoxo

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