Apple Butter Cake

One of my favourite jobs to help with in the garden is pruning the fruit trees - and that's what we did this weekend.

Yesterday we picked the last of the Lady Williams apples, stripped the remaining apple tree leaves, and pruned the branches ready for the new fruiting season.

And today, after we juiced the apples, I made Apple Butter Cake. Yum!

Apple Butter Cake

185g butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup caster sugar

3 eggs

1 cup self-raising flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1/3 cloudy apple juice

1 Red Delicious apple (I used Pink Lady)

1 tablespoon demerara sugar (I used brown sugar)

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fanforced). Grease and line a 20cm springform pan.

Beat butter, vanilla and caster sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Gently stir through flours and apple juice in two batches until combined. Spread the mixture into cake pan.

Cut apple into quarters and remove core. Slice into very thin strips. Place apple slices in two circles around cake so that they overlap each other. Make sure that the centre is well covered. Sprinkle apples with combined demerara sugar and cinnamon.

Bake in oven for about 1 hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning out.

Serves 8

( Recipe from P41, The Weekend Australian Magazine July 23-24 2005)

Did you have a beautiful weekend?

Sam xx

Brrrrrrrr......

Last night we managed to keep our fire going. And I'm glad about that - really glad because, this morning, it was really COLD!!!!

And, because it was Cold, and we have now almost run out of wood*, the girls and I dropped in to the Hills Forest Centre** to purchase a wood collection permit from the Department of Conservation.

Where we saw kangaroos.

And the girls were impressed! But I don't think the kangaroos were.........

Keep warm!

Sam xx

*   not, I might add, because of last night's fire alone! That would mean our fireplace is spectacularly inefficient!!
** It is now called the Perth Hills Centre. I think the original name is more......descriptive, and certainly a lot more  evocative.

Power Outages

Ah, yes! One of the "things-most-likely-to-happen-in-the-hills" happened on Sunday - our power went out.

We really are getting quite used to the power outage deal (not that we LIKE it). We live among the trees, therefore if there is a big wind, branches come down and the power goes out. It seems logical, except because we live towards the end of a particularly long line, we do get rather a lot more outages than would otherwise be expected.

Sunday's was caused by a nasty storm that also knocked out power to over 130,000 other homes in our city. It was going to take some time to get it all up and running again, and so we settled in to wait - a couple of days, perhaps. And it made me think that there are always positives and negatives in such situations:

The Bad

- my phone always needs to be charged just before the power goes out

- the twins' daycare was closed so no "day off"

- the ovenfixit man is due to check my dead oven - how, I don't know, but I'm reluctant to cancel just in case the power goes back on

- rechargeable batteries - great if they're already charged!

- the food in the freezer starts defrosting and needs to beused or chucked out

- the girls find the glitter container and proceed to sprinkle it far and wide just when I can't use the vacuum cleaner

- the twins' nightlight doesn't work - we haven't enough torches so I am woken four times by scared children in the middle of the night

- losing track of the time because the clock on the oven isn't working

The Good

- having the wood fire means we don't go cold

- we have a gas hot water system

- the girls and I are playing more games and puzzles

- early nights - no telly to convince myself that I really must watch

- candlelight ambiance

- the fridge gets a sort and a clean

- hand kneading the bread dough for the stove top flatbread  = upper body workout and trying a new kneading technique

- a tidier house - I don't want to trip over anything in the dark!

- no technologically inspired distractions

- not too much cooking required because we are eating leftovers out of the freezer (I'm checking for raw chicken drumsticks, I can assure you!)

- losing track of the time because the clock on the oven isn't working!

Kneading by Candlelight!

But best of all is the silence!! It's so quiet without all the appliances doing their thing.

And just as I thinking that, the power went back on. 27 hours. Not too bad. And it could have been for a lot longer. And, given that an even worse storm has been forecast for tonight, we may be going through this all over again.

But at least I'll get an earlier night!

Sam xx