Today’s recipe from Around My French Table is Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake. While this was quite the simple recipe to make, I wasn’t 100% pleased with the outcome. I did everything exactly as the recipe instructed, but this turned out more like a bread pudding than any sort of “cake”.

Don’t get me wrong, the flavor was nice as it used rum and vanilla with the apples, and it smelled so good as it baked. I was really excited to try it, but it just didn’t do it for me. I’m not a fan of bread puddings so I wouldn’t jump to make this again for myself. It would probably been nice with a little rum spiked whipped cream!

I felt like it was so wet that it just would not cook completely, especially the bottom. It was soggy. I’m thinking of cutting it into pieces to cook in a hot skillet for breakfast tomorrow. Making a sort of apple pancake thing. My husband would be happy with that!

Either way, I’m glad I tried this. Maybe I’ll attempt again sometime, but with fewer apples. The batter didn’t cover my apples at all like they were supposed to. Although, I still think this is a lovely looking cake, don’t you?

Piggy- Rear view RSPCA Cupcake day, originally uploaded by Sugar Pot.

How adorable are these little Piggy bottoms from Sugar Pot? Way too cute. I’m sure it was quite a bit of work as well. I’d say it was worth it!!

A friend of mine had a Birthday yesterday, so I made some cupcakes. I must say, I had these grand pictures in my head of what they were going to look like. They were quite beautiful. However, don’t let these lovely little cupcake shops fool you, icing them to be so pretty and cute is harder than it looks! After testing about 6 different tips and failing miserably, I ended up snipping the end of the ziploc bag and just squirting that icing out! It was fun even though I did not turn out to posses secret Pastry Chef powers. 

Finished product. Only decent picture, sorry.
Only had the zoom lens at the time, and it was not cooperating in our small kitchen. 
  

Cupcakes cooling. I didn’t fill them up quite enough this time around.
 

See the ones I messed up on? No tip, just the Ziploc bag! 
It worked out much better for me.

This was a lot of fun. I will definitely do it again. However, I’d like to make the cake part of the cupcakes a bit denser to hold up to flavor and sweetness of the icing. Anyone have any recipes to share?