• 170g unsalted butter
• 4 eggs, separated
• 330g  plain flour
• 170ml milk
• 330g icing sugar (plus a little extra to decorate)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp cocoa

• Preheat your oven to 170°C  and coat the bundt cake tin with plenty of melted butter.
  
• Whisk the butter with the egg yolk until foamy, add all the icing sugar, and stir until creamy. Add vanilla extract or sugar (sachets of vanilla sugar are very common in Austria and Germany but I've never seen them here)
  
• Beat the egg whites until stiff. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Mix half of the flour into the butter mixture and combine. Add the milk, combine, then add remainder of the flour. gently fold in the egg whites.
  
• Pour roughly half of this mixture into the cake tin. Add cocoa to the rest and mix. Pour the darker batter on top of the lighter one into the tin.
  
• Drag the handle of a wooden spoon or a fork through the batter and wave it around to achieve the marbled look.
  
• Bake for 50 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes on a cool rack, then take the cake out of the pan. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  If you have a go at baking this please tag me in any photos you share, I would love to see.

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
225g Bramley or Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
100g sultanas
115g unsalted butter, diced and chilled, plus extra for greasing
115g light brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
6-8 tbsp milk
2 tbsp demerara sugar

Method 

Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas 4. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper.

Mix the flour and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour using your fingers, until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the light brown sugar. Beat in the egg followed by 6 - 8 tbsp of milk until you get a smooth, thick batter.

Add the apples and sultanas and mix to combine. Scrape the batter into your prepared tin and gently level out. Sprinkle over the demerara sugar and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes and then carefully turn out onto a wire rack to cool further.

Best served still warm with a little custard. (I like a lot of custard, so thick you can slice it)

I haven't really been up to much since returning from my West Wales holiday. I took a bit of a tumble in work, my foot was swollen and blue and now it has cellulitus. Having a blue foot isn't much fun AT ALL and I want it to return to normal so I can go to yoga and get out on my bike now that the days are a bit longer. Silly blue foot stopping my fun.

I have tried to keep busy around the house and have taken a chair in the kitchen to kneel on so I can bake and not be stood up for a long time. (I can stand up again now, the swelling has gone down a lot). I always drool over Claire's fabulous cake creations but she is based in Northern Ireland which is a bit far to go and get a cake if you live in Wales so I tried to make one of my own inspired by hers and this is what I came up with:

Not bad ey? It's a classic sponge cake with blue cream cheese frosting and meringues (meringue recipe here) and edible glitter on top. If you want something amazing you should really hire a professional like Claire. They have all the skills, flair and right equipment. No matter how hard I try my cakes always look a bit shoddy.

I made some lemon curd with all the leftover egg yolks I had after making meringues and slathered that in the middle of a sponge cake, yum! I like the recipe over on Good Food, classic equal quantity recipe and easy to follow. It looks a bit messy but I'm impatient and assembled the cake before it cooled properly so the curd spread everywhere.




If you want to vote in the General Election on the 7th of May you only have until the 20th April to make sure you're registered. Head over here if you want to do that. If you're a student please check that you're registered and have your polling card. Voting switched from household to individual voter registration. Previously universities put students living in halls of residence on the electoral roll but you have to sign up individually now.

I've been lucky enough to see two of my favourite acts live recently. I promised my mum I would get her Paloma Faith tickets for Christmas and they sold out so I begged for tickets on twitter for weeks and managed to get some at face value in the end. The stage was beautiful, I loved her band and the arrangement's on the songs and her backing singers had amazing soul voices. Paloma was funny and as playful as always. She puts on a great show and has more hits that you realise so I would highly recommend seeing her if she's touring in your area or at a festival you're going to this summer. 



I had been looking forward to seeing Morrissey for ages, I hadn't seen him since 2008 in the Roundhouse and I wanted to share one of my musical heroes with Martyn. Unfortunately I saw Morrissey on the day I fell over and hurt my foot and spent most of the show sitting down at the back crying because it hurt so badly. Foot pain was temporarily forgotten when he sang Suedehead and Every Day Is Like Sunday.

What have you been up to recently? Send me your blog links if you've shared something I should be reading, listening to or visiting over Easter. Hope you all have a lovely long weekend!

On Saturday I was lucky enough to attend the first ever blogger event at The Celtic Manor Resort. It was an exclusive preview of their Christmas Afternoon Tea which was totally delicious and a really fun experience. It was also a launch event for their new blog which will feature guest posts from South Wales based bloggers and be a place you can go to see behind the scenes at the resort.

On arrival we were greeted with a glass of bubbly and led in to a very festive room. We go to learn a little more about the resort and Karl the Pastry Chef explained what went into making the afternoon tea and the inspiration behind the food. They normally serve 100 afternoon teas a week but in the build up to Christmas they serve an average of 250 - 300 festive afternoon teas. That's a lot of cake!

The food was absolutely divine and we given some delicious finger sandwiches, Caerphilly cheese & leek tartlets, miniature brioche with prawns and a miniature bagel with smoked salmon. 
The savoury treats were all amazing but there was more... A Penderyn whiskey and marmalade festive Bara Brith, Celtic Manor mince pies, a white chocolate Christmas pudding truffle. I was feeling pretty stuffed by this point so I took home the top tier of the stand which included pistachio marzipan cones, toasted sweet chestnut bouche Noel and glacé cherry & apricot Florentine.


We were also served a afternoon tea staple, scones with jam and clotted cream. Ours had a little twist and contained candied citrus peel.

The mulled wine was to die for and came served in a tea pot with a Christmas cosy, how cute is that?


I tried to dress for the occasion and wore my dress with a  tea pot and tea cup print on it and my favourite old Topshop shoes.



I want to thank India and Jess from the marketing team at the Celtic Manor for hosting such a lovely event. I had a great time and it was nice to chat and relax with some blogging pals in such lovely surroundings.

If you want to enoy the festive afternoon tea yourself it will be served from 1st - 24th December.

I don't wear this bracelet enough, it was a impulse sale purchase a few years ago and I'm trying to get the cost per wear down a little. Pairing it with my new favourite outfit means it's getting out of its box more frequently.


Trying to find cheap boots that fit my wide feet is a yearly nightmare for me. Wide fit shoes tend to be ugly and aimed at a 50yr old + market so I snapped these wide fit Primark beauties up as son as I saw them. 



I've been posting loads of photos over on instagram recently so if you like photos of cake and other calorific food head over there to take a look. Instagram tends to get all the moments that aren't big enough to get a blog post. Leave your instagram name below if you use it, I'm always looking for new people to follow.


I've got posts about my trip to Bath and a day out in Cathays Park, Cardiff coming up later this week so keep en eye out for those.

Birthday parties, a trip to London, a refurbishment in work, going to yoga & the gym and making sure I leave time to hang out with Martyn and see my friends has taken it's toll on me over the past month. I've been off work for a few days as I've got a bad case of shingles. Boohoo. Apparently shingles can appear if you're feeling a bit run down or stressed so I've had a few days at home to myself and I've done all the things I love but don't normally have the time too. (Except I had to do it with a tingly right hand side and a rash)

I made Martyn a chocolate orange cake because I like to bake but hate chocolate orange so I didn't eat any of it. All the baking fun without the calories, wooo.


I've watched over 30 episodes of Gilmore Girls and I'm now making loads of pop culture references and speaking faster than the speed of light. Luke > all the other men in Stars Hollow, why does it take Lorelai take so long to figure this out?! I've seen every episode at least 4 times now and I never get bored.

I've done a bit of shopping in bed and have ordered these gorgeous heart shoes beauties as a little treat to myself, a girl can never have too many pairs of heels right?






I've tried to take in as many vitamins as possible by using my new juicer. Vitamins will make me well again, right? Having shingles is no fun at all.


Before the ever-so-fun shingles I went to see Martyn's band support Masked Intruder. I don't get to go out as much as I used to and Martyn works most weekends so I had a blast at this gig and it I really enjoyed dancing to this.


I also went out book shopping WITHOUT MY PHONE. Can you imagine that? I didn't check twitter the entire way to Cardiff on the train, I didn't post any photos on instagram and I walked around with two hands free to look at books. I bought a guide to Budapest (I just booked a holiday there) and a geeky book about the London Underground. I'm thinking of going out minus a phone more often.


I'm really looking forward to being well rested and heading to Bath for an overnight trip next weekend and hosting a blogger meet up at Pettigrew Tea Rooms on Sunday.

How do you fit it all in? Work, friends, fun. Being an adult is tricky isn't it?

Afternoon tea can mean many different things to many different people. It can be an extravagant day out to a chic hotel eating miniature sugary delights, it can be a  party for all your friends, the perfect idea for a hen party or a great way to catch up with a special friend.  I'm going to share some of my tips, cheap decorating ideas and recipes which I hope will inspire you to host your own tea party like I do for birthdays and other special occasions.

I think what really elevates afternoon tea to a grand occasion is the setting and attention to detail. A coffee and slice of cake with a friend is just fine but I love spending time planning what I'm going to bake and really going to town with the table setting. The cost of hosting a tea party could really run away from you but I always make everything myself and on a tight budget.

Setting the scene

Get your best table cloth out, if you own a tiered cake stand, dust it off and use it as the centerpiece of your table. Otherwise, use your best china and make it a little more special with  doilies, folded napkins and homemade name place settings. I've been collecting tea cups and cake stands from charity shops for years and you could mix second hand things in with more modern pieces. I really like the mismatched look and I've never payed more than a couple of pounds for any of the items featured below.  Finally, string up some bunting and you're feeling ambitious, make your own. You can get some great free printable bunting online and I even found cute cake bunting which you can print at home.

I made bunting with doilies and the materials cost under £2. The doilies came in a pack of 60 from Poundland and the embroidery string cost about 35p each. Bargain!


You can customise your buting by drawing on it, stamping words on it like I did or just leave it plain.


I would say the most important element of hosting a tea party is your guests. Invite your friends over, hold a birthday tea party for your loved ones and show someone you care with a cup of tea and a huge slice of cake. I'm more than happy to sit around eating cake on my own but it's much more fun with company.



I hope this post has inspired you to host a little get together. If you have any afternoon tea tips for me please do let me know. I would love some savoury food ideas for my next one so links to recipes would be much appreciated.