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Serves 10 -12 (25cm cake)Difficulty:
Easy
This spiced apple and olive oil cake is slightly unusual, not only in taste but also texture. Expect a dense cake, packed with flavour and fruitiness. As the cake is fairly dense I like to serve if warm.
English apples have a special place in our cooking repertoire, as all the different varieties have their own flavour and react differently when cooked. I like to use English Cox’s for this spiced apple and olive oil cake as the Cox’s hold their shape better than cooking apple varieties. I can also recommend Russets; they are softer and have more of a tendency to break up but have an intense sweet apple flavour. We need to support our local apple farmers and help them to grow the unusual apple varieties regardless of their shape and size .We need to invest in our heritage and prevent the old varieties from becoming extinct. Make this a personal challenge and bake this cake with the English apple of your choice.
Ingredients & Method
- 280g plain flour
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- pinch of salt
- 1tsp baking powder
- 100ml extra virgin olive oil
- 150g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, seeds only
- 4 large free-rang eggs
- 4 Cox apples, peeled and cut in 1cm dice
- 1 lemon, zest only
- 30ml milk
- 2 large free-range egg whites
Preheat the oven to 160°C, grease and line a 25cm cake tin and lightly dust with flour.
Weigh the sugar, vanilla seeds and oil into a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to whisk the sugar and oil till light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, whisk until creamy and pale in colour.
Sift all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Fold half of the dry ingredients gently into the egg mixture with a metal spoon. Add the milk and fold the rest of the flour in. Do not over work the batter.
Fold in the diced apples and lemon zest.
Whip the egg whites to soft peaks and fold the egg whites into the cake batter.
Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin and place the in the preheated oven on the middle shelf and bake for 1 ½ hours.
Once the cake is cooked, remove from the oven and let cool in the mould for 10 minutes, turn out on to a cooling rack and let the cake cool completely.
Dust heavily with icing sugar and glaze the cake either under the grill or using a blowtorch, this will give the cake a caramelised sugar topping. (optional)
Serve slightly warm with clotted cream or pouring cream.