I woke up on Sunday morning after a very busy couple of days with a huge urge to make an apple pie. So I grabbed a copy of my Baking Bible by Mary Berry and got baking. I've slightly adapted the recipe to my own taste, as her recipe includes cloves and I'm not the biggest fan. Pies like these are just what you need on a cold Autumn day, they're filling, delicious and the perfect accompaniment to a special Sunday dinner. My family absolutely loved eating this so I know it's one I'm going to be making again, next time I might add blackberries or raisins to add some extra sweetness into it!
To make the apple pie filling you'll need:
675g cooking apples
62g caster sugar
½ tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tablespoons of cold water
For the pastry:
175g plain flour
50g diced butter
50g diced white baking vegetable fat (like Stork)
2 tablespoons of cold water
Milk (to glaze)
Granulated sugar, for sprinkling
- Use a shallow pie dish. Peel, core and cut the apples into thick slices. Arrange half if the slices in the bottom of the dish, sprinkle with half of the sugar and spices. Then add the rest of the apple slices, the sugar and the spices. Then drizzle over the cold water.
- To make the pastry, measure the flour into a bowl. Add the diced butter and white vegetable fat and rub together with your fingers until the mixture becomes like breadcrumbs. Add the water and mix to a firm dough.
- Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface to a size that will cover the top of the pie dish. Lift the dough on the dish and trim the edges. If you like, you can use the trimmings make decorative shapes and light press on to the dough. I chose to add on stars but hearts, leaves or flowers could work too. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Brush the pie with a little milk, then sprinkle on the sugar. Make a small slit in the centre of the pie for the steam to escape. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 40 minutes, until the apples are tender and the pastry is crisp and a light golden colour. Cover the pie loosely with foil towards the end of the cooking time if the pastry starts to brown.
- If your fancy really treating yourself serve with custard or good quality vanilla ice-cream. Enjoy!
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I'm sure you've seen the phrase 'Autumn is here' more than you'll ever need to this week, but there has definitely been a big change in the weather in the UK recently. It'll be hardly a surprise to those who know me in real life that I love it when it gets cooler. One of my favourite songs ever is called Sweater Weather... So, of course I placed an order on ASOS as soon as I felt a chill in the air. I finally found some over the knee boots that fit nicely and a big chunky grey cardigan which I've worn non stop since it arrived.
There's so many things I love about the beginning of Autumn, the most exciting one is knowing that Christmas is on its way! Yes, I said Christmas. As I work in PR I've been ready since June, so I'm now no longer surprised when I see mince pies in September or that Selfridges have opened their Christmas shop in August. There's so many things I love about the weather getting cooler including autumnal colours, cosy nights in, candles, mittens, & bobble hats, baking, fireworks night and extravagant hot chocolates.
It feels like forever since I've put together a fashion blog post and I've really missed it. Life has been a little bit crazy in the last few months- but in the best way possible! I've been lucky enough to go on a couple of holidays, and I just fell out of my little blogging schedule. Sometimes working full time and trying to run a blog can be a little frustrating as quite often it rains on the weekend, making it pretty tricky to shoot an outfit post. So last weekend I was determined to take some outfit photos whilst there were still plenty of Autumn leaves around. I absolutely love the way they look in the background of photos. My boyfriend and I drove over to a very drizzly Crystal Palace park to snap this Topshop cord number, (thank you Liv for tweeting about this playsuit)! Now, I may not wear it quite as well as Gigi (check out Topshop's A/W campaigns to see what I mean). As Halloween is coming up I thought I'd give it a bit more of a Wednesday Adams twist and then continue to dress like her until Winter is over. Who could blame me? Why wouldn't you want to wear collared dresses, black tights and plaits for the next few months...?
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I was lucky enough to visit New York for the second time earlier this month, so I thought I'd pop together a photo diary with a few of my favourite photographs I had taken during my trip. New York is somewhere I could definitely see myself moving to one day, in fact one of my good friends already has and I do feel tempted to hop on a plane and join her. It reminds me so much of London except it has better make up shops (*cough* Sephora) and much more pizza, both of which I'm a pretty huge fan of to say the least. I'd absolutely love to hear more suggestions of the places to visit in NYC, so please do let me know in the comments below.
Where I ate:
Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, yep you've guessed it, they sell ice cream and is possibly one of the best places to go for it. I went for a subtle chocolate & vanilla twist ice cream, topped with pretzels and rainbow sprinkles (please note the sarcasm when I wrote subtle). Sarabeth's for the best (and rather expensive) brunch, it was a little pricey but well worth the money and it's so lovely to sit down and have a fancy breakfast right by Central Park! Artichokes Pizza, a great place to grab a slice or sit down to devour a massive pizza after walking through The Highline.
Where I shopped:
Victoria's Secret, Sephora (I went in here many, many times - huge apologies to my poor boyfriend), Barnes and Noble and Papersource (the US version of Paperchase). One of my favourite finds was Economy Candy, possibly the best place to go if you want to stock up on US sweets, they even sell Harry Potter sweets!
Where I went:
The Highline (of course), Smorgasburg; for the weekly food festival (the locations changes often and it travels all over the city), The Meatpacking District; which is great for shopping and I loved walking from Chelsea to Union Square, a few of my favourite areas in Manhattan. Finally, I've saved the best till last, one night my boyfriend convinced me to go to Madison Square Gardens to see the New York Knicks play and it was honestly one of the best things I did during our trip. It was so fun to go and watch the game being played and capture the atmosphere of a home game. I'd highly recommend checking out what they have coming up before you go as in a few weeks time Blur are playing!
As I’m writing this it seems like
it may be the wettest day in London there’s ever been. I can’t believe a few
days ago I was tottering around in my garden on a sunny Saturday figuring out
how to shoot this outfit. I know it’s a very boring thing to talk about but the
weather this summer just feels like it’s been particularly bad, there’s even
expected to be thunderstorms when I go on holiday to Barcelona! The bad weather
seems to want to follow me everywhere… But in true brit style I remain hopeful
that there may be an India summer on the way and I may finally get to wear
summer wardrobe.
One of those pieces is this dress
from ASOS, I spotted it on Amy from my favourite blog, The Little Magpie, and just thought the
colour and cut was so lovely. Since then I’ve seen it pop up on my Instagram feed
non-stop for the last few weeks. I think this is due to the flattering shape
and it’s the sort of thing that could easily be worn again in the colder months. Being
able to wear something again and again is so important to me when buying
clothes. I’m not one of those bloggers who luckily can afford to buy lots of
different pieces, however I’m sure my mum would say differently…. ( as I am
known to do an ASOS shop a few times a month!) What do you think? Is this something that's important to you? I think I may start doing a few more blog posts where I re-style a couple of things from my wardrobe that you've already seen on my blog, just to show how to change things up. Let me know if you'd like to see this in the future or not!
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I spotted this doing the rounds on a few blogs so I thought
I'd join in as I really love the autumn/winter time. For all you bloggers out
there I'm not tagging anyone so if you fancy doing this tag post go for it! I
think it's such a fun one to answer.
Favourite seasonal drink from Starbucks/Costa/Cafe Nero etc?
I actually only drink two hot drinks as I don’t like tea or
coffee! The two drinks I like are Hot chocolate & Camomile tea, so it would have to be either of them!
Accessories- what do you opt for: scarf, boots, gloves?
I love wearing little bobble hats and mittens in the colder
months so they would have to be my favourite accessories!
Music- what's your favourite music to listen to in the
Autumn?
Well one of my all time favourite songs is Sweater Weather
by The Neighborhood which is pretty weather appropriate so I’d have to pick
that song.
Perfume- what's your favourite scent for this time of year?
Pour Femme by D&G is lovely and smells really rich, The
Elizabeth & James Nirvana black smells quite similar in terms of its top
notes so I’d have to pick these two!
Candles- what scents will you be burning this season?
My Zoella Beauty candle & Fairy Dust candle by Lily
flame.
What do you love most about Autumn?
I know it’s too early to say but I love knowing it’s nearly
Christmas and of course the fashion!
Anything that has my three favourites: a pink nude lip, a
bronze/copper smokey eye and of course the winged eyeliner - it's my go to look
for nights out! I love the style of make-up in the images above, they sum up my
all time favourite look! I pinched these photos from Pinterest, (the last image
has been created by my favourite MUA, Charlotte Tilbury!)
What are you looking forward to most in Autumn?
Although this is not autumnal I just saw Damon Albarn at the
Royal Albert Hall, which was something that I had been looking forward to for
ages. I obviously also love the more traditional events like Halloween and
Fireworks day!
Daisy x
I feel like I've not done an outfit post in forever and they do seem to go down quite well, let me know if you prefer styling sort of posts. I really liked putting this outfit together and although I'm wearing heels you could definitely make this look more casual. For a day time look I would go for either black hi-top trainers or some tasseled loafers. I also picked up this amazing ring from the Z for Accesorize collaboration which I am a little bit obsessed with. It's been designed by jeweller Zara Simon, the pieces are just so beautiful and they look much more expensive than they actually cost - the majority of the pieces are around £15. I've not been compensated in any way to talk about this I really do think this collaboration is amazing! Most of it is still all online which is shocking as it's just so lovely, here are some more of my picks:
I've just finished my PR internship after being there for four months and I had such a great time, I can't believe how quickly it went. I have a little bit of time off before I begin my next one which I'm due to start in just over a week. I've not been up to much else other than work, however last week I was kindly invited to the Ann Summers x Coppafeel party. It was held at Westfields Stratford where I was treated to an evening of fun, chatting, champagne and a lot of bras! Sam Faiers is also their brand ambassador and I was able to meet her that night, she was lovely & looked amazing, you can get her picks in the link above! I uploaded a photo of us together on my Instagram account which you can follow here. I've been posting on there loads recently, it's the best way to catch up with what I'm up to.
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P.S If you can't see my picks you may need to turn your Google ad block off as for some reason it blocks this widget!
I recently picked up this dress in my local Primark and I have completely fallen in love with it, so much so that I also got the dark red version of it too, both for the bargain price of £30. The red dress is pretty much a dupe of the Saint Laurent Collared dress except this one is less than a percentage of the price! I wore mine with some cosy knit tights and biker style ankle boots to toughen the look up. This is a look that will become an autumn/winter staple of mine as it's just so easy to put together.
I've also teamed the look with my new Rebecca Minkoff Mini Affair bag in Navy which I picked up in at the beautiful Henri Bendall's store in New York (which you can read about here.) I've wanted one of her bags for a while and always thought I'd get a Mini Mac after seeing YouTubers such as Miss Glamorazzi and Fleur De Force rave about them! However I saw this online just before I went, and knew this was the one I had to get and I'm very excited to have my first designer handbag. I know it's one that I'll use for years as it's such a classic style.
What do you think of this look? What's on your handbag wishlist? Check out a few of mine here.
Here's what I wore:
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