National Trust Challenge part 4 - Dorset Apple Cake

I live on the boarder of Somerset and Dorset which an amazing part of the world. So I felt like I had to make this recipe, it had nothing to do with the fact that our fruit bowl was over run by apples for some reason this week.

I was very lucky as my parents were visiting us this weekend and my mum bought me a bundt tin for mothers day

So I had to use this to make the cake, I decided to make this slightly at the last minuet as we had someone leaving at work so I did not have the cider that it called for or even apple juice which I think would have worked just as well. I used water which did not have any negative effects on the taste or the consistency.

Again this was a very easy cake to make, I think it took me more time to peal and chop the apples than it do to make the rest of the cake. I used mainly wholemeal flour with a small amount of plain flour and more apples than it said (as we had loads) but it did work. 

Here is my version of the recipe which comes from The National Trust Complete Traditional Cook Book by Sarah Eddington.

3 apples peeled and chopped

50g of mixed dried fruit

1/4 pint water, apple juice or cider (whatever you fancy or have to hand) 

110g butter

110g brown sugar

2 eggs

150g wholemeal flour

75g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Soak the apple and dried fruit in the water/apple juice/cider while you cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs one at a time then sift in the dry ingredients. Fold in the apples, dried fruit and the liquid then spoon into a baking tin. 

Bake at 180 for 30 - 40 minutes. until golden brown. 

It is very tasty with a cup of tea, and I wasn't the only one with a thought of cake in the office on Tuesday 

But these were three very healthy cakes, we had carrot cake, lemon drizzle and apple cake. Think they must be at least some of our 7 a day!

For more National Trust recipes look here

Working Mummy

I have an amazing little boy who has just turned 3, I loved being pregnant and had a relatively easy birth but I hated being on maternity leave. I am not the sort of person who can sit around day after day and only talk about babies and unfortunately when I was on maternity leave we only had one car (which my husband used for work each day) and there was only mummy and me classes or coffee shops in walking distance. By the end of my maternity leave I was ready to go back to work, I was craving adult conversation about anything but babies and comparing other babies to my little man. 

We were very lucky and found a fantastic childminders to look after our bundle of joy as I went back to work full time. I chose to go back full time partly because I wanted to and partly because if I didn't we would not be able to pay our bills and eat each month. We then moved and I found another full time job and another fantastic nursery which really pushed him and created this amazing little person. By the time he was 2 1/2 I started to feel guilty that I had not been a stay at home mum or even worked part time but I knew that we could not afford for me not to work and I knew that I could not be at home with him all day every day. 
I had a really bad day at work and looked online at jobs and saw my perfect job, 4 days a week at a lower salary than I was on but I applied and got the job. We were able to reduce Nathan's hours at nursery from 10 hours a day to 7.5 hours and I got to spend a bit more time with him at home which I loved. We realised that he was forming some really strong friendships at nursery but we knew he would not be going to school with these children as we lived in a different catchment area to them so had to make quite a hard decision to move him from where he was to a pre school closer to home. This caused a problem as he could only do 15 hours a week there as it was a non fee paying school. I work 30 hours a week and my husband is a primary teacher so works every hour under the sun. We were able to find a lovely childminder for the extra hours and things were great. Nathan seems to be excelling again and loving the fact they are doing dinosaurs as their topic this term. 

Then one Wednesday afternoon our happy lives got turned upside down as my childminder was unable to carry on looking after him with immediate affect. This meant that I had to change my hours at work to fit around school runs and stay at home more until the Easter holidays when my husband could look after him full time. Just before this happened I had agreed to do an order of cupcakes for  corporate event and have a stall at a pre-school fundraiser morning. This meant that for 2 mornings last week instead of doing fun things with Nathan I sat him in front of the TV and spent my mornings baking. Normally I would have Nathan helping me when I bake and he loves it but I knew that would not be possible this time. 

I produced the 4 dozen cupcakes for the corporate event and they looked good. It was the first time I had used rice paper discs that were printed especially for me. Next time I will be spending the extra money and getting them pre cut as cutting out 48 discs was not much fun!

I then worked a 13 hour day to try and make up some of the hours I was missing at work so I did not have to use up my holiday and the next morning Nathan wanted to do some baking before school so we made so Easter Nests which is another National Trust recipe. 

 

It was very easy to make and very yummy - here is the link 

Then on the Friday I had to bake another 60 cupcakes so again spent the morning baking while Nathan watched TV. But all he wanted to do was be with me which made me feel like the worst mum in the world as I knew I had to get these cakes made and decorated in a very limited time. They were done and I spent Saturday morning watching people walk my my stall often commenting on how lovely the cakes looked but not buying anything! This made me feel even worse as I knew that I had more or less ignored my son for a whole morning while making them and then I had left him with my parents while I was doing this. It happened to be a lovely day on Saturday so we could have been doing something as a family for the day and having a great time but instead I was sitting in a cold room watching people not buy my cakes!

I wish there was a way that I could work, bake and look after my little man all at the same time without feeling that I am not doing a good job in one of them!