Ingredients

500g/ 1lb

cooking apples, thinly sliced

Juice of 1 lemon

2 pinches

organic Fairtrade mixed spice

1tbsp

caster sugar, or flavoured sugar like cinnamon orlemon sugar(if using cinnamon sugar, drop the mixed spice)

225g/ 8oz

unsalted butter, at room temperature and chopped into cubes

195g/6¾ oz

caster sugar

large eggs, at room temperature and whisked gently

1 tsp

organic Fairtrade vanilla extract

195g/6¾ oz

organic plain flour

2tsp

baking powder

¾ tsp

sea salt

½ tsp

organic Fairtrade cinnamon powder

75g/2½ oz

organic ground almonds

Theidea for this cake loosely comes from the wonderful cook book “European Peasant Cookery” by Elisabeth Luard; it is her recipe for Apple Cake orÆblekage, which comes from Denmark. “European Peasant Cookery” is one of those great cookbooks that is packed with recipes that will inspire you and has no pretty pictures to beguile you and get in the way of the cookery.

Axel has changed it quite a lot but the underlying concept remains the same – a rich, moist apple cake. The result came out as a rich and fulsome apple cake that can be eaten hot or cold, as a cake or a pudding with custard or cream. It is a delicious balance between the sweetness of the cake with the tart freshness of the cooking apples; it reminds me of Zwetschgendatschi, which is one of my favourite flavour memories buried deep in my soul from holidays spent in Bavaria around the Chiemsee.

Method

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F. Take a 23cm / 9 inch cake tin and lightly oil the tin, remove any excess oil, then line the base with baking paper.
Windfall Apples From The Garden - Go pick your apples, peel and core them, then slice thinly. Place in a bowl and sprinkle the lemon juice over them all, then sprinkle with the caster sugar and a couple of pinches of mixed spice. Thoroughly mix it up to make sure all slices are nicely coated with sugar and spice. Leave until later.
Grind the ground almonds in a food processor to make them finer – I know it sounds weird but they are usually just too coarse. Put to the side for use later in the recipe.
Cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and Steenbergs vanilla extract and whisk up fully. Sieve together the flour, baking powder, sea salt and cinnamon powder. Add the flour mix into the cake batter and thoroughly mix up, then add the ground almonds and mix into the batter.
Pour half the cake batter into the cake tin, then layer over half the apple slices. Cover with rest of cake mixture and then layer rest of apple slices over the top of the cake.
Layer The Apples On The Cake Batter
Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At around 1 hour, sprinkle the top of the cake with1 tablespoon of sugar and start looking and checking the cake to ensure you catch it just when it is cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in tin for about 10 minutes then turn out and cool on a wire rack.
Serve warm with custard or whipped cream, or cold as a cake with double cream or on its own.