A Grand Day Out

Barter Books, it is Amazing! For those of you who don't know it's a gigantic second hand book shop inside the old Alnwick railway station. Its so full of character and the staff are super friendly, you can even take dogs inside, plus there's a cafe which sells beautifully delicious home made cakes. Honestly its just  jaw-dropping-ly Amazing... 

So recently we took a trip put and I took some (actually rather a lot) of pictures and I thought I'd share them with you!

Then off we popped to the beach!

The weather was wonderful and what had actually been a spontaneous trip out, turned into one of the most amazing days. I think there the best sort of good days; the spontaneous ones.

What do you think?

Much Love,
A slightly tanned Alex-Rose xx

Just to confirm this is not a sponsored post, I just think that Barter Books is Amazing.

Apple and Maple Cookies

This recipe originates from one in the Great British Bake off cookbook (sticky maple and apple tray bake). It is absolutely divine! Recently I was looking at that recipe thinking,
"hmmmm should I make this again?" but then I saw a recipe for cookies in the latest Good Food magazine and that made me think again. I really wanted cookies... So I use the maple and apple flavours with the cookie recipe.

The cookies themselves just have apples in them and it is the icing which is used to stick them together that gives them the maple flavour, much like the tray bake where the icing is the only maple flavoured component.

Before I made them I was a little worried about whether or not apples would actually work in cookies and I can confirm that they do! But first you must cube your peeled and cored apples then sauté them in butter and brown sugar. This gives them a lovely butterscotch-y coating and cookies them through a little, taking away the bite that raw apples have. This means that when your cookies are finished the apples are delicious and soft just adding little sprinkles of extra flavour and texture throughout the cookie.

My only complaint would be that the icing needs to go in the fridge if you are keeping them, but generally I would say try and eat them all on the same day as baking. What am I saying!? "Try and eat them on the same day" I'm sure you'll have no issues!

Hope your all having a nice week? On the plus side its half way to the weekend! *Woop woop*

Much Love
Alex-Rose xxx

"Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"

Well, what gorgeous weather we're having! More about that later, but first I better address the big subject... Where have I been?

Where have I been... I am terribly sorry for my absence and hoped you survived without me, but blogging had to take the back seat in the last couple of weeks. Shameful, isn't it? But it was necessary as I had a ridiculous amount of assignments due in and exams, as well as a number of other events! All in all culminating in a very stressful week. More importantly it meant I had no time to blog, bake or for that matter do anything other than write essays and revise... So Dull!
But, this weekend I decided to hop back into the swing of things and so got out my camera and took a few snaps in the garden. I was rather pleased with them if I may say so myself, so I thought I would share them with you lot!

That brings me nicely onto the next subject, Sunshine! It was almost 20 degrees on Saturday!This may not sound like much to some of you but here in the north of England that's about as good as it gets! Finally it feels like summer, and I'm loving it. I love it when its warm and sunny because it makes the day so much better. When its sunny you can where dresses and prance about for no reason at all, but not feel silly because its so sunny. You can go to the beach and splash in the sea even though its stupidly cold. You can have barbecues and eat outside. Everyday feels like a holiday.

More than anything this little snippet of sunshine has made me so exited for the summer. I am most definitely a summer sort of person.

Are you a summer sort of person?

Much Love,
Alex-Rose xxx

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet XVIII: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? by William Shakespeare