Well, this could well be the last baking post for a while. My oven is broken and I can't get it repaired until the weekend!!!! I had to cook my dinner on Sunday night, lying on the kitchen floor holding down the gas knob. I can't imaging having to do that for the hour it will take to bake a cake or roast that lamb that's sitting in the fridge. As I'm just about to go overseas and have a weekend away before then, baking is low on my list of priorities at the moment. There is still so much to be done!
I made this apple cake last weekend to celebrate a workmate's birthday. I've been making this cake for years and thought I'd have great problems tracking down the recipe but found it here. I've adapted the recipe slightly (of course). I use half the sugar in the pastry and flavour the tinned apple with the remaining sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Sometimes I put a few tablespoons of apricot jam over the base and flavour the apple with grated lemon rind. Either combination works really well.
If you have any fears about making pastry, this half cake/half pastry recipe is very forgiving and requires no rolling out.
Normally I have great trouble unmoulding the cake and getting a perfect slice, so I didn't try on this occasion. Of course, the cake sliced perfectly this time but after the hungry hordes descended all that was left was just apple mush on a plate! I'll have to move in more quickly next time.
Here's the recipe for you. I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.
Country Apple Cake
Pastry
2 ¼ cups of self raising flour
2/3 cup corn flour
1/3 cup caster (superfine) sugar
200 grams/7 ounces of butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup milk
Filling
800 grams tinned pie apple
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated lemon rind
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F and lightly grease a 23cm/9 inch springform cake tin.
Put the sifted flours, the sugar and butter into a food processor bowl and process until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Pour in the egg, vanilla and milk and process until mixture wraps around the blades.
Press half the mixture into the base of the cake tin using floured hands). Spoon in the apples and cover with the remaining mixture (it helps if you press it between the palms of your hands).
Bake for 50 – 60 minutes. When cool dust with icing sugar or sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
For those of you enjoying a Long Weekend, I hope you were blessed with glorious weather. It was a grey and cold Sydney weekend and I may or may not have spent most of the weekend wrapped in a rug reading travel guides to Paris and Amsterdam.
See you all again soon,
Jillian
