Apple Cake

Baking has always had to be simple for me and these days quick as well. I cannot stress how important quick is at the moment, now that I have a little one on my hands. Yes, the chef on duty is now also a mommy on duty. I managed to make this cake twice, in the weeks that my lil baby was a couple of weeks old. It wasn't hard to make, didn't take much time and turned out perfectly delicious (enjoyed with a gigantic scoop of vanilla ice cream), it's just that it took  me a month to finally blog about it. Oopsie.

I found this recipe in my darling Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book. Have you watched her shows? She's such a doll, lovable Nan. I love poring through her recipes because they are so simple, yet traditional and use such great combinations of flavours and ingredients. This recipe also uses almonds and I seemed to have run out of them when I decided to try this cake, so I used raisins and cashew nuts instead. Feel free to go with what you like.

I'm gonna get to the recipe right away then:

Apple Cake


Ingredients:

450 gm apples, thinly sliced
Juice of 1 lemon
4 eggs
1 tsp almond essence
250 gm castor sugar
225 gm butter melted
350 gm flour
2 tsp baking powder
a handful of chopped almonds

1. Start by pre-heating the oven to 180 C. Grease and base line an 8 inch round tin or a 12 x 9 inch tin with butter paper.
2. Mix the thinly sliced apples with the lemon juice , so the apples don't discolour.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and almond essence. Add the sugar and mix well.
4. Next whisk in the melted butter.
5. To finish off, sift in the flour and baking powder and mix well.
6. Pour half the batter into your prepared tin. Then place the apple slices, arranging them as you like. Top it off with the remaining batter.  Scatter the almonds on the top. If using raisins like I did, mix them with the batter instead of scattering them on the top. They'll blister and burn if you put them on the top.
7. Bake the cake for about 1 hour or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
8. Serve the cake warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.