English Apple Cake

-


Written by McDonald, T.  |  Date 2nd of October 2023  

What better way to celebrate a festival or just the weekend than with a slice of English apple cake?  This cake is flatter than most cakes, but is spread out more in a larger baking tin.  You can cut it into squares or into fingers. Notably, it is very easy to make and so tasty!

Notes

  • Use scales to weigh out the oil and water because jug measurements can be way out.  
1 gram = 1 millilitre.
  • You can use, as extra, some bicarbonate of soda for extra lift; however, if you do, add a spoonful of vinegar either white or cider or white wine vinegar. The acidity reacts with the bicarbonate of soda.


Servers, 12 – 14

Time, 50 minutes for cake and 30 minutes to make the filling.

 

Ingredients for cake mix

Wet ingredients

  • 100ml vegetable oil, or sunflower oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 170ml tepid water 

Dry ingredients 

  • 280g self-raising flour
  • 160g caster sugar 
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp salt 

Ingredients for apple sauce

  • Apples x 2 largish cooking apples (about 450 g)
  • Brown sugar x 6 tsp
  • Cinnamon x 2 tsp
  • Clove x 1/4 tsp
  • Lemon juice x 1/2 a lemon
  • Water x 1/2 cup

Apparatus

  • 30 cm x 20 cm rectangular cake tin
  • Medium sized saucepan
  • Large mixing bowl
  • Balloon whisk
  • Spatula 

 

Method

Step 1 – make the apple sauce

  1. Peel and cut the apples into thick slices and add them to a medium sized saucepan.
  2. Add the sugar, lemon juice, clove, cinnamon, and water to the pot.
  3. Bring to the boil and turn down to a simmer for 20 minutes while stirring occasionally. You don't want a smooth paste; try to keep it a little chunky.
  4. Take off the heat and put aside until needed.

Step 2 – make the cake mix then add the apple sauce to the top.

  1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan or 180C.
  2. Add all the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix with a balloon whisk.
  3. Mix all the wet ingredients in a jug and poor in to the mixing bowl a little at a time.
  4. Don't over mix or it will become too hard; just mix it rather than beating it. 
  5. Grease the tin with vegan butter.
  6. Poor the batter evenly into the rectangular cake tin.
  7. Spoon the apple sauce onto the top of the cake mix.
  8. Bake on the lower middle shelf of the oven for 25–30 minutes at 160C fan assisted.
  9. Leave in the tin for a few minutes after removing from the oven.  This will make it easier to remove from the tin because it will shrink a little.
  10. Carefully remove from the tin onto a cooling rack. I use a large Spatula or flipper to help it out of the tin. Please note, this is very tricky and it is easy to break your cake.

Cake mix ready for the apple sauce to go on top.


Results

Really nice tasting cake with the flavour of apple coming through in every bite. In addition, it had a beautiful moist texture.  Was very easy to cut into fingers and everyone enjoyed it.



I hope that you liked this blog and if you do try this recipe, please let me know how you got on and what it turned out like. You can leave a comment in the comments below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vegan Yorkshire Puddings

-
Image
Written by  McDonald, T.    |  Updated 24th of March 2024 Yorkshire puddings are a tasty part of Sunday dinner in the UK not to mention Christmas and Easter.  With this in mind, a vegan alternative is required to satisfy the patriots dinner plate.  I looked for a long time and tried many different recipes, but in the end I had to alter the best basic vegan recipe to make it perfect.
Read more

Viking Skause

-
Image
Written by McDonald, T.   |  Date 12th of December 2022 Abstract  Skause is a Viking stew, which contained, boiled meat, vegetables and Mead , an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and included spices (What Viking Diets Were Really Like, 2021).  I wanted to make something vegan that a meat eater would think of trying.  Being as meat eaters, especially men, see themselves as being a little on the wild side, I needed something that would appeal to the old world fun vibe.  So, when I was looking through old recipes for inspiration, the Viking food immediately jumped out at me.  Bearing in mind I need to appeal to both vegans and especially non-vegans, the mock meat had to be good.  Unfortunately, the mock meat I intended to use, Naked strips, was not available, so I had to improvise.  This resulted in the idea to add three different types of mock meat to the dish.  I struggled to find suitable mock meats at such short notice. ...
Read more

The Price of Ignorance

-
Image
By T. McDonald . | Date 1st of November 2019 | Updated on 15th April 2021 Ever woke up and thought, ‘Is this it?’ Have you ever been plagued with the idea that something is wrong with the world or your life; something you can’t quite put your finger on? If you have seen the matrix, you may be aware of the famous quote about having a splinter in the mind. Something in life is wrong and that thing is the price of ignorance. Something in life is wrong.  The fictional character Morpheus from the movie The Matrix (1999) explains: ‘ …there is something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it is there like a splinter in your mind… ’ So, what is it that is troubling people so much that it comes out in modern media and common sayings?  To answer that question, we must first look at what we are. We are animals. Animals need to find resources by which to sustain themselves and humans are no different. Notably, many people also have pets ranging from dogs and...
Read more