Apple cake

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Welcome all my dear new friends. I am really thrilled and overwhelmed by the response that you give me. Thank you so much for the sweet and encouraging words that you leave here. I ♥ reading all your comments and each one is precious to me.

And thank you so much Sara for featuring my granny ripple tutorial in your Tangled Happy.

I am not much of a fruit eater but whenever there are apples or bananas left over at home the thought that immediately comes to my mind is to bake a delicious apple cake or banana cake. I have tried a variety of recipes and not all of them turn out well, but some are really good and this is one such recipe. I don't remember from where I got the original recipe but it was not the recipe for an apple cake. I tweaked it to make an apple cake and the method is quite simple.

Ingredients

Cake flour - 3/4 cups

(since no cake flour is available here I substituted it with

1 tbsp cornflour added to all purpose flour to make 3/4 cups of flour)

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Salt - a pinch

Sugar - 1/2 cup

(I would reduce it, the cake was too sweet)

Vanilla - 1 tsp

milk - 1/4 cup

Cooking oil - 1/4 cup

(I used sunflower oil)

Egg - 1

Apple peeled, cored and diced - 1/2 cup

Method

1. Sieve all the dry ingredients together.

2. Mix all the wet ingredients together.

3. Add egg to the wet ingredients and beat.

4. Add the dry ingredients.

5. Add the diced apples.

6. Pour the batter into a prepared cake tin.

7. I sliced half an apple and topped the batter with the apple slices. They became dry during baking, so I would omit them but if you wish you can do it.

7. Bake until done.

Also, I would reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe.  I found mine too sweet for my taste. The original recipe was meant for a plain cake but since we are adding apples here and apples give some natural sweetness to the cake the amount of sugar can be reduced.



Also, after a long time I did some cross-stitching. I love cross-stitch and I have done a few of them though not in the recent past but I have never used aida cloth. I had always done my cross-stitches in canvas since I find them less strainful.

I found this stack of cupcakes in the internet but there was no pattern, so I worked out the pattern on my own and made use of the colours that I had.

I will show you the finished work in my next post. It's time to go to bed, so good bye for now.

Yellow flower doily

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Another week gone and nothing much accomplished. These past few days have been creeping slooowly for me. I have plenty of ideas, plenty enough to congest my little brain and give me sleepless nights, but nothing put into action. I hope this lethargy will lift off in a few days.

This doily was completed long back. Do you remember the little red doily? I used the same pattern and made 7 little doilies and joined them together. Then I gave an edging using a darker shade of yellow. 

 Last week me and Harsu went to explore a new park near his school. We had seen this park from outside but hadn't gone in. It had been a while since I had ridden my scooter and so we decided to take it and go visit this park.

He took his skates along and I took my camera.

I had hoped to see plenty of flowers there but I was only disappointed. This is a huge park but there were very few flowers. Even the one which is near our house has more flowers.

I was lucky enough to capture one or two before it started to get dark.

And here are some birds flying back home.

Weekend is here and I hope you all have a happy weekend.

Blooming Tree

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Today is going to be one of my happiest days. My friendship with my best friend, Ramya, whom I had lost contact with for over 7 years is going to bloom again like this blooming tree. What a coincidence. Last night I was editing these photos to post them today and before I went to bed I checked my mail and was pleasantly suprised to receive a mail from her brother. He had mailed me her contact number. Can you imagine my happiness? I wanted to jump. I would have called her immediately but it was too late at night. She is one person I had missed so much all these years. When I moved to Delhi I lost contact with the very few friends that I had and in Delhi I didn't have any real friend other than family friends. Today when I am free I am going to call her and catch up on all those missed years and our friendship will bloom again as this blooming tree.

I can go on and on. So I will put a stop here and we will see what this blooming tree is about.

  I don't know the name of this flower but anyone who has been to Ooty will know this flower. We call it Ooty flower. This flower lasts forever. I bought a few bunches when I went there in June.

These flowers have thin stems and the stems had withered, so they were not good enough to be put into vases.  So I cut out the stems and glued them to the twigs to make this lovely blooming tree.

There is a huge tree in front of the house and it is from there that I get these dried branches. I really love decorating them. Remember my tree of hearts? I have got a few more branches. I have to think of something for them as well.

Do you see the vase here? It was a plastic container. I wrapped a coir around it and glued a crochet flower. Ok, that's it friends. Hope you all have a lovely weekend. 

Hexagon potholder

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Potholders - something which I truely enjoy making but don't have any real use for. I don't use them to hold pots (no way!) and I haven't hung them on the wall either. The three potholders I have done so far are just lying about in my crochet basket along with the yarns but still I am looking for more and more patterns to make. May be when I have completed a few of them I would consider hanging them in an appropriate place. Until then I plan to make more and more.

I developed the springtime hexagon pattern to make this potholder. For the back I made a simple hexagon and sewed the edges of both the pieces together and for the edging I made 3 chains and slip stitched them in alternate stitches.

I hope to do more and hope to share more. Until then...bye!

Agra Fort

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Some time back when my brother was visiting us we took him to see Agra Fort and Taj Mahal. It was here at the Agra Fort that Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his own son, Aurangzeb. It is such a huge fort and a marvelous one too.

Do you see those intricate designs? Splendid isnt't it?

This is the Taj Mahal seen from the place where Shah Jahan was imprisoned at the Agra Fort.

Shared with The Creative Exchange

Another paper frame and a wreath

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Yes, another rolled paper frame, a much bigger one. I love making this versatile frame. You can make it as big or as small as you wish and you can frame anything. This time I used it to frame a cute little wreath that I made.

This dry bouquet was a gift from my best friend Ramya eight years ago. I used it to make a tiny wreath.

Since the wreath was too small for the frame I glued this vintage print but am not too satisfied with the choice of picture. I did it in haste because it was getting dark and I had to photograph it when there was still enough light. Anyway, I could always change the picture when I find a better one.

For instructions on how to do the paper frame click here.

Have a nice weekend.

Paper heart bunting

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I hope all my American friends had a wonderful extended weekend.  I am really thrilled to see that everyday my blog is reaching more and more people and I am excited to learn that my projects are being an inspiration to many of you.  Getting featured in sites like craftzine and dollarstorecrafts has really helped me a lot. I really appreciate all your support.

Here is another fun project that I made during the weekend. Actually this was not meant to be a bunting. I wanted to decorate another set of dry brances that I found with these paper hearts but then I felt that they would look better as a bunting, so I stringed them together to make the bunting.

I just cut out these heart patterns from a thick sheet and a few book pages. I covered the thick sheet heart with the book page hearts on both sides, glued button and punched a hole. I used my yarns to string them together. 

  

 It is a lot of fun if you engage your child. This is such a simple craft but such simple things really lift my spirits.

Blogging and photography have changed me a lot. I have learnt to appreciate and enjoy simple things in life. Yesterday I went to the terrace with my son and found there grasses growing there. I brought a bunch of them down and put them into a vase. Earlier I wouldn't have bothered to give this ordinary grass a second glance, but now I can even spend the whole day looking at this picture. It looks so magical that it really amazes me to see how even an ordinary grass can do wonders.

Shared with Communal Global

These sketches were by my kiddo. He just loves to draw vehicles, nothing else. These are the sketches of a cruise ship and dirt bike in case you are wondering.

That's it for now. Have a nice day.   

Giant banana cupcake

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Banana cake - One of the cakes that I bake more often at home, but I have baked chocolate banana cakes more frequently than plain ones.  This time since there was no cocoa powder at home I made these plain ones.

You will need

All purpose flour - 3/4 cup

Baking soda - 1/4 tsp

Baking powder - 1/8 tsp

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Sugar - 1/2 cup

Vegetable oil/canola oil - 1/4 cup

Egg - 1

Vanilla - 1/2 tsp

Banana - 1

~ Sieve all the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt).

~ Beat together oil and egg in a bowl until blended. Add sugar. Beat well.

~ Add the dry ingredients, mashed banana and vanilla and fold until well blended.

~ Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake.

I used a pudding mould to make one big giant cupcake.