Recipe: Apple Spice Cake with Caramel Sauce

Happy Halloween!!!

I know.
Right?
The title AND the picture alone is enough to leave you drooling.
I LOVE this cake.
I have no idea where the recipe came from, just that my Grandmother and Mom have been making it for as long as I can remember.

....and let's use up all those good apples that you got on sale at the store!

This is an insanely simple desert to make --- and I am all about simplicity when it comes to baking.
But I am also about the *wow* factor too.
You'll come to learn soon enough; that I love to create food that is simple, yet has a great effect in taste as well as beauty.

Ingredients for cake:

     1 cup granulated sugar                                                                     1 1/2 cups flour
     1/2 cup butter at room temperature (1 stick)                                    1 tsp baking soda
     2 eggs                                                                                             1/2 tsp cinnamon
     3 large apples; peeled & diced (use a potato peeler)                        1/2 tsp nutmeg
     1/2 cup chopped nuts (your choice--& totally optional) 

Directions for cake:

~preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x9 pan.
~Cream together the sugar, butter and eggs.
~Sift the dry ingredients together and add to the sugar mixture.
(HINT: the dough will be really thick, almost like a cookie dough -- that's ok)
~Stir the diced apples in -- by hand -- add the nuts (if you so choose) and put in your pan.
~Bake for about 45 minutes. -- Just watch it, you'll know when it is done: the center won't be wobbly and it will be nice and brown (tan is not done).

Caramel Sauce ingredients:

1/2 cup butter at room temperature (1 stick)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup whipping cream, non-whipped (1/2 pint)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tblsp flour

Directions for Sauce:

~ Mix the flour and granulated sugar in a small bowl.
~Put the rest of the ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium heat.
~When the butter and brown sugar are melted add the flour/sugar mix and whisk until clear. -- You're basicly warming up all the ingredients and letting the flour do its binding job. It won't be super-thick, but it will look like caramel sauce.

You can serve the cake warm or room temperature --- its good no matter what!
You can also double this recipe and make it to fit in a 9x13 pan. Just adjust the time to cook it.
When I made this, this past week, we had leftover sauce --so I dipped some chopped up apples and had myself a snack. YUM!

Enjoy a new fall recipe!

If you would like to print off a copy of this recipe just click HERE.

Paper Distressing - Sanding

I know, I know. We're DAYS away from Hallowe'en and all the Betties are posting fantastical Hallowe'en crafts. Which are FABULOUS; I am in awe of my fellow Betties' creativity! And, honestly, looking forward to making some of these with my kiddo over the weekend!  Buuut...I'm not going to do a Hallowe'en-themed post.   

GASP!

I KNOW, I know. I'm horrible.

But I wanted to show you one of my most absolute FAVOURITE techniques. SANDING! It's a fabulous distressing technique aaaaaaand I use it all the time.

Before you get started you need to make sure your cardstock has a white core. You can tell by looking at the edge - if there's white, you're good to go.
 Not all cardstocks have this absolutely FANTASTIC perk, though, so be mindful of it when you're at the stores.

white core cardstock

Then, obviously, you need some sandpaper.  (I use the three fabulous grains from Close To My Heart's sanding kit; love it).

dunno why this uploaded upside down... whoops! But 220, 100, and 60 grain papers

Coarse, medium, and fine... all well loved!

Also, you'll need to work on a surface you're not overly fond of, and I DEFINITELY recommend scratch paper to protect whatever surface you are on.

Base of my card, ready to go!

For this, I used my COARSE (60) paper.  And then I've sanded applying pressure in only one direction - it gives a sort of lined/striped look...

Once finished THAT, go back across the other way, to make a thatched pattern.

 

Now, I'm all about efficiency (read: LAZY), so for this card, I'm only sanding two of the edges, 'cause that's all that's going to show. 

Okay, next, I'm sanding this fabulous buttercup circle, and I'm going to use my FINE (220) paper - this will make a much softer look, and actually makes the paper super smooth to the touch.

There's no real which-way to sand this - make circles, do lines back and forth, whatever.

I focused a bit more around the edges to soften up the shape. Resulting in:

voila!

And here's the finished card!  Sanded edges, softened yellow... I love sanding!

(Card pattern from Wishes: Card Confidence Program "Keep it Level")

Here are some other examples of straight sanding techniques I've done: 

Using medium (100) all over the card.
(Card pattern from Wishes, "Lucky Layers")

Coarse sanding just the edges...
(Card pattern from Wishes, "Collage")

...results in this fabulous look!

Sanding the base-pages and photo mats around the edges with fine grain, coarse-grain hatching on accent pieces, and finally light sanding with coarse paper around the edges of the pictures themselves.

The result being some extra depth and dimension to this adorable page (layout from Cherish but I can't tell you which one 'cause I sold my copy and haven't got a new one yet! At least my kid's cute, right?)

And that, my friends, is that! A brief introduction to your next favourite technique! I'll expand on it in another post - you can do some seriously fun stuff with an embossing stylus, paperclips, shapes, and your sanding kit, but for now get a feel for it, fall in love, and happy crafting!

Cheers!
*Red

Halloween Paper Pumpkin

Its Halloween  time and seems like everyone are thinking about that, so i'm too. And one more time papers can help in your decoration. You can make a lot of paper pumpkin, and use onother materials to improve this simple ideia.

To start the only thing that you'll need is  paper and glue.

First you  have to glue the paper strips together forming a circle

Then join the ends to form your pumpkin



And now you can decorate with everything that you can find at home!!! Happy Halloween everyone!!