An afternoon of baking comfort food definitely helped to counteract this weeks news. The kitchen has always been my happy place and today it did the job of filling the house with the smell of cooking apples, and that was bloody lovely.
It’s cosy and comforting and wonderful with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.
Since it’s a Somerset apple cake (Dorset and Devon have their own versions) I tried to keep the ingredients as local as possible. The apples were grown on the grounds of National Trusts Barrington Court, and I used cider from Perry’s Cider, which is also made just up the road.
Ingredients
- 100ml cider – I used Perry’s Cider Dabinett cider (medium sweet)
- 2 large free range eggs
- 230g Unsalted Butter
- 225g plain flour
- 225g golden caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 Bramley apples, peeled
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and grease and line a 20cm cake tin
- Prepare the apples by dicing one into small pieces, and slicing the other into thin quarter slices
- Beat the sugar and butter on a medium speed until it’s light in both colour and texture
- Fold in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and chunks of diced apple
- Add the eggs, 1 at a time, followed by the cider and mix until well combined
- Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and arrange the apple slices on top
- Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the sponge is springy to touch
- Sprinkle over a dusting of caster sugar and serve warm with a drizzle of cream
