Guernsey Gache Melee

So, what on earth is Gache Melee, I can imagine you saying! Pronounced "Gosh mellar", it is a traditional Guernsey apple cake. As is the way with these old family recipes, there seems to be an abundance of different recipes for this cake. Some are very cakey, some more sticky and gooey. The only thing that seems to be the same is that they all contain cooking apples, originate in Guernsey and are very dense.

I’ve no idea where the recipe I used on this occasion came from originally – as with the Crispy Pineapple Bakes, I copied this recipe out of my Nan’s recipe book, which is an amalgam of recipes copied from magazines, handed down through the family, passed on by friends …

I called my mum to ask advice before making this recipe – but she wasn’t a great deal of help! Her advice was that she “just knew when it was right!” Hmm, thanks Mum! So pretty much, this was a case of experiment and see how it turned out! She did, however, warn me that you always had to bake it for much longer than the recipe said – she wasn’t wrong there! The recipe said 30-45 minutes, I baked it for about 2 hours! Although this was possibly slightly long as the edges had begun to go beyond “caramelised”!

The end product was chewy, gooey and caramelly. Tasty, but not quite right in my mind – the edges were overcooked and the middle not quite cooked. Having posted on Facebook about this, I’ve got a couple of different recipes to try – so may give those a go and see if they are more successful.

Gache Melee

Ingredients

1. 2 medium-large cooking apples (peeled, cored and cubed)
2. 120g plain flour
3. 100g butter (at room temperature)
4. 100g soft brown sugar
5. Enough milk to make a firm paste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150C and line a brownie tin with baking parchment.
2. Place the cubed apple into a bowl and sprinkle over the flour. Use a knife to stir the flour with the apples.
3. Cut the butter into the bowl so that the butter is evenly distributed amongst the flour and apple.
4. Mix again with the knife, chopping everything together until the butter and apple are well integrated into the flour.
5. Add the brown sugar and stir everything together with a wooden spoon.
6. Mix in enough milk to make everything stick together without becoming runny.
7. Spoon into the prepared tin and place in oven.
8. Bake (for approx. 1 hour 30 minutes) until golden brown.
9. Remove from oven and leave to cool in tin.
10. Once cool, remove from tin and cut into squares.

Nan’s Crispy Pineapple Bakes

It was my birthday on Friday and so last weekend I decided to have a bit of a bakeathon in preparation.  Throughout the week, I had planned to meet up with some friends and so I decided to bake one of my old reliables – Sticky Ginger Cake with lemon drizzle icing. I just love this cake – it is easy and fairly quick to make (although takes an hour to bake), tastes amazing and lasts brilliantly – so great for making in advance.

Having made the Sticky Ginger Cake, I felt like experimenting with something new – so had a search through my recipe file and found two recipes that I had copied out of my Nan’s handwritten recipe book, but hadn’t yet made: Crispy Pineapple Bakes and Gache Melee. I decided to give both a go – and pop them in the oven at the same time. I’ll tell you more about Gache Melee in my next post.

I don’t remember ever having had Nan’s Crispy Pineapple bakes but they sounded delicious – pineapple cake topped with syrupy cornflakes! They were fairly simple to make – except you need to allow a bit of time as you have to boil up the pineapple mixture and then leave it to cool for 30 minutes. The tricky bit is trying to tell when the cake is actually cooked. The recipe I was using said bake for 40 minutes – I think I ended up baking for about an hour and a half. However, having just had a check, I’ve realised that the recipe said (in typical handwritten recipe style) “Gas Mark 5?” – I took a guess and thought that this would be about 165C – having looked it up, it should be 190C – which will explain why it took so long to cook!  It is difficult to tell when it is baked as the cornflakes on the top prevent you from being able to get at the top of the cake to give it a test. I used the skewer test and in the end, it finally came out clean.

This cake is a squidgy, dense cake (well it was when I made it) – and that works brilliantly with the crispy cornflakes on top. The pineapple flavour comes through beautifully. These cakes are definitely best eaten fresh. If they are left, the cornflakes will go soft and the contrast in textures is lost.

I’ve converted the imperial measures to metric – so hope they work out ok. I’m definitely going to have another go at these – EHH really enjoyed them and I’d like to really get them right!

Crispy Pineapple Bakes

Ingredients

1. Large tin of crushed pineapple (432g)
2. 60g butter
3. 120g caster sugar (preferably golden)
4. ½ tsp mixed spice
5. 150g self-raising flour
6. 1 large egg (beaten)

Topping

1. 30g butter
2. 1 tblsp golden syrup
3. 60g cornflakes

Method

1. Place the crushed pineapple and juice, butter, sugar and mixed spice into a medium saucepan. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, stirring the whole time.
2. Increase the heat and boil rapidly for 3 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, pour into a bowl and leave to cool for 30 minutes.
4. Pre-heat the oven to 190C and line a brownie tin with baking parchment.
5. Add the flour and the egg to the cooled pineapple mixture and beat until smooth.
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.
7. Melt the butter and golden syrup and bring to the boil (easiest to do this in a bowl in the microwave).
8. Remove from heat and stir in the cornflakes.
9. Sprinkle the coated cornflakes over the cake mix.
10. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until firm.
11. Remove from oven and  leave to cool in tin.
12. Remove from tin and cut into squares.