Anyone for the last of the season's apples?

Apple and Cinnamon Cake

Ah cake, beautiful mood enhancing cake, the answer to all our woes!  Not sure about you, but for me cake doesn’t have to have a 3 inch layer of buttercream in the middle and another 3 inch layer of chocolate ganache on top to make it worthy.  In my world, a good cake should be left simple and unadorned – this is one of those cakes.

I was at my parents house in Galway last weekend and in true “Irish Mammy” fashion, my Mam packed me off to Dublin on Sunday evening with a jar of homemade marmalade, a packet of sausages for our tea (honestly!) and a bag of cooking apples.  They are the last of her apples for the year and they’ve been sitting in my fridge all week as I try to decide what to bake with them.  Finally decided on this recipe which is one my Mam has been baking for years.  It has a layer of cinnamon coated apples in the middle and another layer on top of the cake that sink slightly into the cake as it bakes.  It’s so simple and only uses store cupboard ingredients, which is always a plus for me (I hate seeing a recipe that I want to make NOW but need to go to the supermarket to get some Peruvian vanilla extract or Italian walnut oil!).  I’ve just googled “layer apple and cinnamon cake” and it seems that this is also called a “Jewish Apple Cake”.  Whatever you want to call it, it works and it tastes delicious.

Ingredients

6 large cooking apples, such as Bramleys
1 tablespoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons sugar

350g plain flour, sifted

175g wholemeal flour, sifted

3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
200ml vegetable oil
175g granulated sugar

200g soft brown sugar
50ml orange juice
2 ½ tsps vanilla extract
4 eggs
50g walnuts, chopped (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20 inch springform tin.

Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each one.

Pour half of batter into prepared tin. Spread half of the apple chunks over the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and spread the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a skewer comes out clean.  You may have to cover the cake with a piece of parchment paper halfway during cooking to prevent it burning (I did!).  Check after 1 hour to see if the cake is ready.

Leave in the tin to cool for 10 mins. and allow to cool completely on a wire tray before dusting with icing sugar.

Apples tossed in cinnamon and sugar

Ready for the oven

Straight from the oven.  Hot, hot, hot

Ready to serve

Ooooh, yes please!