Apple Cake

I’ve long been a fan of an apple cake. Damp and farmhousey with a crunchy sugar crust, or like this one, light and fruity and topped with cinnamon spiced frosting.

I know ‘frosting’ isn’t terribly British, but icing just wouldn’t work here. The maple and muscovado, cream cheese frosting slormed on this cake is reminiscent of carrot cake, but without the carrots. Lack of vegetable matter means it feels a lot less virtuous, but that’s the point.

I just looked up the word ‘slormed’ in the dictionary to see if it makes sense to anyone but me. I proudly found that it is part of the Midlands (UK) dialect, so probably only used within a stones throw of here. It means “To wipe carelessly” i.e. “She slormed sun cream across her ample bosom.”

It happily sits alongside other local words that are eminently useful, like ‘clarty’ meaning sticky and thick, “She got her welly stuck in the clarty mud.” I love accents and dialects, listening to people speak in their own unique way is a joy. I overheard an old couple in a shop yesterday discussing what to get for pudding, he said to her, “I’m not sure I want that crumble again Betty, it was a bit clarty.”

I’ll be honest, I can’t attribute this recipe to anyone as I don’t know where it’s from. It has been scrawled in my recipe book for an age. I originally started making it because the method intrigued me. Instead of creaming butter and sugar you make a voluminous batter whipping up the eggs and sugar, folding in melted butter, flour and apples at the end. I think it is based on a Dutch apple cake, but as of now it’s Things{we}make Apple Cake, not least because it rhymes.

I usually make this without the topping as it’s good to take on a picnic or to wrap in foil and stuff in a lunch box. If I’m going down that route I sprinkle the top with brown sugar and a few extra slices of apple, but seeing as it’s you I’ve cranked it up a notch with some delicious clarty frosting.

Things{we}make Apple Cake

1 Large Bramley Apple (peeled and chopped)
2 Large Eggs
175g Caster Sugar
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
90g Softened Butter
75mls Milk
175g Plain Flour
2½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Cinnamon

Maple & Muscovado Frosting

100g Very Soft Butter
50g Muscovado Sugar
45ml Maple Syrup
140g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia)
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
¼ tsp Cinnamon

Butter and line a 24cm brownie tin with strips of baking parchment.

Whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla in a mixer until frothy and light.
Melt the butter and milk together in a small pan (or melt in a bowl in the microwave for 1 minute)
Stir the butter/milk mix into the frothy eggs and sugar.
Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a separate bowl then fold them in to the batter.
Stir the apple chunks into the mix and pour it into the lined tin.
If you are not planning to frost it, top with apple slices and sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Bake at 200°c for 10 minutes, then turn down to 170°c and bake for around 15-20 minutes.
Test that a skewer prodded in comes out clean of batter.
Leave in the tin for 10 minutes then lift out with the paper strips and place on a cooling rack.

To make the Frosting

Beat the butter, sugar and syrup in a mixer really well until lightened.
Add the cream cheese, vanilla and cinnamon and beat again until pale and smooth

When cool slorm the cake with frosting, if that takes your fancy, then cut into squares.