Old reliables!

August is a crazy busy time at my work and we have to work some very long hours. Therefore, cake is a necessity to see us through! However, working long hours means that I haven’t had the time or energy to be creative or try anything new – definitely time to stick to making old reliables! 

One of my most reliable and best-loved recipes is my sticky ginger cake with lemon icing. I made three of these a couple of weekends ago and they all turned out beautifully. The fabulous thing about this cake is that it lasts at least two weeks, and even improves for being left to mature. The cake has a deep rich flavour and moist, sticky texture that is beautifully balanced by the sharp tanginess of the lemon icing.

Another of my favourite recipes is my Primrose Bakery lemon layer cake (made also here). This week, I decided to keep it really simple and just make a two layer cake (225g golden castor sugar, s-r flour and butter, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 25g cornflour, 4 large eggs, zest and juice of 2-3 lemons). I sandwiched the two layers with lemon curd, smothered the sides with lemon buttercream, filled the top with curd and then topped with buttercream piped stars around the top edge. Apologies – it was all a bit of a rush and I forgot to take a photo! This cake always tastes deliciously moist and zingy! 

Finally this week, I decided to make my Apple Amazing Cake – a cake that I have made loads of times but not for ages. It’s a fairly simple cake to make – as long as you remember that it will take about 3 hours to bake! It’s a mammoth of a cake, so great if you are baking for lots of people. I was a little disappointed with this cake this week – it just didn’t have the flavour that I remembered. It is quite a savoury cake – more like a light fruit cake. I’m not quite sure why it wasn’t right this time – could have been the apples – I’ve always made it with huge Bramley apples, but this time the shop only had fairly small measly apples and I wonder if they were lacking flavour. I also over-cooked the apples slightly, so that they were fully reduced to a mush, rather than having a few nice juicy lumps remaining. Think that I may need to give this another go in a few months when apples are at their best, to see if this recipe really is as good as I remember it to be!   

Apple Amazing Cake

So next on the list for the baking marathon for EHH’s birthday was my Apple Amazing Cake. This is actually an Apple and Raisin Cake but has been re-named Apple Amazing Cake as lots of people have misheard and assumed that this was the name – it also tastes pretty amazing! It is a huge hunk of a cake and so serves lots of people! 

The recipe originally came from a colleague when I was temping many years ago – it’s actually a good thing to be typing it out as I was given it handwritten and it is now looking rather worse for wear, with many splatters and grease marks obscuring bits of the writing. Typing it out means that I’ll have a spare copy – I’d hate to lose this recipe!

The only problem with this recipe is that it does take forever to cook – and is a bit unpredictable in how long it will take! The recipe I was given says between 1.5 hours and 3 hours! You’re also not meant to open the oven too often to check otherwise it will sink!

The recipe is also in ounces rather than grams as this was how it was given to me!

Apple Amazing Cake

Ingredients

1. 4 large cooking apples (peeled, cored and chopped)
2. 1-2 tblsp soft brown sugar
3. 24oz plain flour
4. 3 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
5. 12oz margarine
6. 12oz castor sugar (I use golden)
7. 1 tblsp cinnamon
8. 12oz seedless raisins
9. 4 large eggs (beaten)

Method

1. Grease and line a 9” (22.5cm) square baking tin with baking parchment.
2. Preheat the oven to 190C.
3. Put chopped apples into a large saucepan with 2 tablespoons of water and 1 tablespoon soft brown sugar. 
4. Cook over a low heat until soft and pureed (a few lumps left is fine), stirring regularly.
5. Once pureed, remove from heat and taste – add extra soft brown sugar if needed, but be careful not to over-sweeten. Leave to cool.
6. Put flour, bicarb and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl and rub in margarine until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
7. Stir in sugar, raisins and eggs.
8. Stir in apple puree and mix everything together well.
9. Pour into the prepared baking tin and cook at 190C for 30 minutes.
10. After 30 minutes of cooking turn the oven down to 140C and then cook for another 1 – 2.5 hours.
11. Check occasionally to ensure the top isn’t too brown. Cover with tin foil if needed.
12. To check if cooked, insert a clean knife. If it comes out clean, it is ready.