Bramley apple and custard cake

This week, I’ve been given another big bag of Bramley apples so I’ve been flicking through Pinterest to find some new Bramley apple recipes. Whilst browsing, I found this fab looking cake and followed it through to Cookie’s Cakes and Bakes (CCB) – a lovely baking blog with lots of delicious looking recipes (like her coconut and lime drizzle cake – yum! Will be trying this one out!).  I just love custard but had a bit of a failure when I last tried making a custard cake, however, I couldn’t resist giving this one a go.

It’s not a quick cake to make: firstly you need to make the custard, then the cake, then peel, core and slice the apples before arranging them neatly on top of the cake! However, it is worth the effort! I followed the recipe given by CCB almost exactly; the only thing that I changed was the addition of the apricot jam glaze, which just helped the cake to look that bit more special. 

I love the custard layer running through this cake; the texture of the cake is great and the apples on the top are delicious. However, like last time that I made a custard cake, I found that the custard powder in the actual cake leaves a dry taste in your mouth. I’ll definitely be making this cake again (would be also be fantastic with rhubarb) but next time, I’ll leave out the custard powder and simply up the flour (which is the recipe I have given below).  

Bramley apple and custard cake

Ingredients

1. 200g soft butter
2. 110g caster sugar
3. 2 eggs
4. 1 tsp vanilla extract
5. 225g plain flour
6. 2 tsp baking powder
7. 2 tablespoons milk (at room temperature)
8. 3-4 Bramley apples, peeled cored and cut into slices
9. Demerara sugar for sprinkling over the cake
10. 2 tblsp apricot jam, warmed and sieved to remove any lumps

For the custard:

1. 2 tablespoons custard powder
2. 55g caster sugar
3. 250ml milk
4. 20g butter
5. 2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Grease a 20cm deep cake tin and line the bottom of the tin with baking parchment (or simply line with a non-stick cake tin liner – much easier!).
3. Mix together the custard powder and caster sugar in a saucepan.
4. Whisk in the milk, stirring over a medium heat until the custard thickens.
5. Take the custard off the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla extract.
6. Pour into a bowl, place some clingfilm over the top (making sure that it touches the surface of the custard to prevent it forming a skin) and leave to cool.
7. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.
8. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes in a stand mixer).
9. Beat in the eggs, one at a time until the mixture is frothy and mousse-like. Add a tablespoon of the flour with each egg to stop the mixture curdling.
10. Gently stir in remaining flour.
11. Mix in 2 tablespoons of milk to loosen the batter a little.
12. Spread half the batter in the cake tin.
13. Spread the cooled custard all over the batter.
14. Use a small spatula to carefully spread the remaining batter over the custard, making sure that all the custard is covered with batter.
15. Place your apple slices over the top of the cake.
16. Sprinkle Demerara sugar all over the cake.
17. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until risen and golden. A skewer inserted in the middle of the cake should come out clean.
18. Allow to cool for 15 minutes and then remove from the tin and place on a wire rack.
19. Use a pastry brush to brush the top of the cake with the warmed apricot jam.

The Bridge Café @ The Avon Gorge Hotel, Bristol

Clifton Suspension Bridge (not taken from the Avon Gorge Hotel)

Having had a quick visit to Clifton Village back in December, I’d wanted to come back for a proper potter around the many independent shops for a while.  Having taken the day off for my birthday, it seemed like a great opportunity to visit. It was another beautiful frosty, sunny day in Clifton, although the bitter cold did mean that we didn’t spend quite as long wandering around as we may have done otherwise!  Clifton offers quite a few different tea and coffee shops, but, wanting something a bit special, we decided to walk a bit further up to the Bridge Café at the Avon Gorge Hotel, which offers beautiful views out over the Clifton Suspension Bridge. 

The entrance to the café is very understated and not very inspiring, but, once inside, the rooms are modern and classy. It was quiet, with only one other table occupied – possibly other people were put off by the cold, or it’s just not that known for afternoon tea. We sat on a table next to the windows, with great views, although a little chilly, which made us realise why the other table had chosen to sit back next to the open fire! There is a great outdoor space with lots of tables overlooking the fantastic views – this would be a fantastic place in the summer.

The afternoon tea menu was a little disappointing – I think that for somewhere with such a great location, they could draw many more people in if the menu was more exciting. I get the feeling that the café is more set up for lunch, with afternoon tea offered as a bit of an after-thought. The afternoon tea they offered only included two types of cake – West Country apple cake and Drambuie fruit cake, which didn’t particularly tempt me.  The only other cake available was their daily special, which, on the day we visited, was coffee and walnut. As we were eating out that evening and the menu wasn’t particularly inspiring, we decided not to do the whole afternoon tea option: I opted for the coffee and walnut cake and EHH chose to have the West Country apple cake and the Drambuie fruit cake (which was an option on the menu – he wasn’t just being piggy!).  We both chose to have lattes rather than tea (I figured that tea and coffee cake would be a strange combination!).  My latte came (as it all lattes should!) in a proper latte glass and was delicious, although it could have been hotter. My coffee and walnut cake was moist and tasty – reminding me how much I do like this type of cake (I don’t often make them as EHH doesn’t like coffee cake). EHH enjoyed his fruit cake and apple cake – although both were fairly small portions. The West Country apple cake was quite unusual – it was very dense, more like a pudding than a cake, but did have a nice flavour. His cakes also came served with three small chocolate truffles, which was a nice touch – these were delicious: very rich and velvety.

The staff were very pleasant but the service was really rather slow – particularly considering there were so few people there. There was quite a long gap between my cake arriving and EHH’s arriving, to the point where we thought they had forgotten about his order.

Overall, I felt that this café was a little disappointing as it could be so much better – the location is amazing but the choice of cake was limited, the cakes were ok but not mind-blowing and the service wasn’t quite up to standard.  Although it would be lovely in the summer to sit outside, there are lots of other options for tea and cake in Clifton and I’m not that tempted to return to this one.  

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.