Apple Crumble Cupcakes

I've seen a couple of different apple cupcake recipes but the majority of them were American recipes and I've had some interesting experiences with their measurements! So I thought I'd try to create my own. In all honesty, I think these may have been the best cupcakes I've ever made! My friends certainly enjoyed gobbling them down :)

Ingredients:
125g butter
125g caster sugar
125g flour
2 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tin bramley apple filling

Topping:
1 tin Carnation Caramel (Dulce de Leche)
1 packet of crumble topping

There are lots of shortcuts in the recipe, such as the cumble topping and the caramel, where things could be made from scratch. But I was feeling lazy and this was cheap and worked rather well!

1. Cream together the butter and sugar
2. Whisk in the flour and eggs
3. Add the cinnamon
4. Add the apple filling and stir in
5. Dollop into cupcake cases until they're 2/3 full
6. Bake at 180C for 15-10mins until golden brown. You should be able to poke them with a knife/fork and for it to come out clean
7. Leave to cool on a baking rack

The topping is even easier!
1. Sprinkle half of the packet of the crumble topping onto a baking tray
2. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for a couple of minutes - KEEP AN EYE ON IT! It can be quick to burn!Should come out looking golden :)
3. Spoon a dollop of caramel onto each cupcake
4. Add a sprinkle of crumble

The result should be a ridiculously moist cinnamon sponge and a crunchy caramel topping :) Enjoy with a pot of tea!

Miss x

This Week in Southsea

This weekend is a pretty exciting one if you're a fan of all things vintage, handmade and cupcake related! Southsea are putting on two markets and I'm hoping to head over and see at least one of them :) The first is the Southsea Boutique Market at St Swithun's Church Hall on Saturday, 12-3pm...

On Sunday, is the Love Southsea Sunday Market, at the Square tower in Old Portsmouth, 11-3pm. This one is every first Sunday of the month and I'm already excited just looking at the poster!

Hope to see some of you lovely Southsea people there ♥

Miss x

Adventures in the Sun

It's so very nearly spring like this week! The sunshine is out and the skies are blue :) Although it has turned much chillier this week, that's my favourite weather ♥

Just some pics from the last week or so, using the Instagram app which I absolutely adore!

A new craft night started up in Southsea last month at Tea Tray in the Sky. This is a gorgeous new tea shop and a great setting for crafting! I set about making circle paper bunting, which basically meant I cut up a lot of circles..hoping to be prepared with something more fun next time. It's a monthly event, but talking to Lou, the organiser, it sounds like she's got some fantastic ideas up her sleeve!

Went to City Museum to see the new LBD exhibit. We can't get enough of this place! It's small but fun and cheap :) The exhibit had some beautiful dresses from all different eras and I like the local involvement with dresses and photos from people in the area. I ♥ Southsea


I picked up these pretty green and pink jam jars in the village where my parents have recently moved. The shop was filled with lovely home items and upstairs had vintage furniture and glassware. The lady in the shop even paints up furniture! I ♥ my parent's new home, I like to pretend I live there when I visit..sigh! Pretty daffodils were from the boy :)

At the weekend, we decided we needed a night out and a few drinks! Unfortunately this lead to a dangerous drinking game played at the boys' house which never fails to get me very drunk :s This time, however, there was a new twist...we all had to do a shot of Balkan! That's 88% alcohol and my god, could you feel it! The picture above is when we burned of the remnants after drinking the shot...that bad boy burned for a looong time.

Nicola with the Balkan :) She's smiling now, but our faces were not that happy after the shot!

That Fucking Drinking Game - this is the official name..it's pretty appropriate!

I got overly excited about the sunshine being out this weekend (although it managed to throw out a fair bit of rain). Blue skies in Southsea are the best.

The boy and I baked an awful lot of cupcakes last week...24 in total! We made marshmallow vanilla ones and chocolate chip ones. First time i've done chocolate and I've learnt not to be so eager with the cocoa powder :s

Phew, it's been a busy few days! But lots of fun :)

Miss x

Festive Film Festival

One more week to go! Then I hit Christmas holidays and all kinds of fun festivities :) This weekend was my Festive Film Festival night, so Saturday I set about preparing.

I'd decided to have a go at making eggnog..I'd never made it before and the only time I'd tried anything like it was when I used to work in Starbucks and tasted the mix used for the lattes! But it was actually fairly easy and cheap, I used this recipe. The only problem I ran into was my lack of whisk but luckily Caketin brought me her electric one round so the day was saved :) The result? Delicious! I was pleasantly surprised and will hopefully make some for Christmas day...

We also had an abundance of mulled wine which is a bargainous £2 is Asda at the moment!

Pretty fairylights adorn everything in my flat right now...most of them stay up all year round as well!
I made cinnamon Christmas cupcakes which went down rather well despite them being a little flat! This picture is actually of my coffee and walnut ones made a couple of weeks ago..still my favourite :)
It was a really fun evening, the only problem being that we didn't actually get round to watching the film! But it was really good to catch up with everyone, make ridiculous jokes and generally ahve fun drinking and chatting :) I bloody love those people!

Last night I dug out some laptop fairy lights which my mum had given to me a couple of years ago..it's true. I am a little obsessed!

Hope you're feeling just as festive!
Miss x

Guardian Angel Day

To try and get us all feeling a bit better about ourselves and showing how much we support one another, our welfare team came up with Guardian Angel Day.

We signed up our names, got put into a lucky dip and each of us was given another person to be their Guardian Angel for the day. Basically, we've just do something nice for that person, whether it's make them tea, give them a chocolate bar or do some of their work for them!

I decided (of course!) to make my person a cupcake with a little banner saying 'You're Fab!' I then found some instax photos from an out of date film that I got at a car boot recently. Some of the pics didn't come out, but rather than throw away, I made a little Guardian Angel photo/card to go with the cupcake :)

I think everyone finds the day a little cheesy but we're all secretly excited to give and receive Guardian Angel fun!

Miss x

P.s big camera post coming soon with all my recent car boot finds..I'm running out of room for them!

Cupcakes, Comics and Car Boots ♥

I finally made some cupcakes!

After banging on about it for so long and sampling many others, I finally got my cook on and whipped up a batch :)

I found these rather lovely coloured cases in Asda....

(I also ended up buying matching nail varnishes, but shhhhh!)

After baking some little cakes, I attempted to match up the colour of the icing with the case....and then covered with sprinkles, yum :)

I even got a bit creative with some more headband making. I ♥ the colour of this one, I even wore it out that night :)

This weekend was spent with friends and family. Saturday was a road trip and some comic book geekery with the best people ♥ before heading back for pizza, music anthems and youtube silliness! They even let me take lots of photos with my Fuji Instax Mini :)

Sunday was Mother's Day so I spent a lovely day hunting through a car boot sale with the family. My mum is quite the bargain hunter and made some fab purchases. I found a War of the Worlds LP which I almost couldn't bear to put back, but it was a little overpriced....maybe I'll be brave enough to haggle next time!

Miss x

Stuck In My Head...

..is this song :)

Can't hep but sing along ♥

Had a lovely little craft evening tonight..the gorgeous Caketin even made us cupcakes!(photos to come..I can't find my camera phone lead) They were super yummy and covered in hundreds and thousands...my favourite :)

My knitting is coming along slowly and more holes are appearing! But I figure I'll cover them up with pretty ribbon or buttons :) It's my first attempt, so we shall see...

Busy week this one and a lack of good sleep (boo!) but I'm looking forward to a gig on Friday and catching up with friends...I ♥ it when they all come over, it makes my flat feel cosy :)

Sleep attempt number a zillion...wish me luck!

Miss x