Recipe for an apple cake

Apples are one of the most delicious and versatile fruits. Full of vitamin C they are a wonderful fruit to sink your teeth in and a great way to quench your thirst.

But, also very tasty to use in cooking and baking. Especially baking. In previous blogs I’ve given you different recipes for apple tarts and pies, so the recipe today is for a scrumptious apple cake.

With it still being autumn in this part of the world, some of our apple trees are bearing their last fruits. Cooking apples. So, I looked for a different cake or pie to bake and found this apple cake in a South African recipe book – Kook en Geniet – (Cook and Enjoy It is the English version). I’ve written about another recipe from this recipe book in a blog here. This book represents authentic South African food, culture and heritage and the first edition was published in 1951. The book not only contains recipes, but also great ideas and general methods for baking and cooking. It also includes lists of substitutes for common ingredients and measurements. These days much of this information can be found in a google search, I know.

This recipe is relatively easy and straightforward and best eaten when warm. The syrup covering the cake makes it a notch above the rest.

Ingredients for cake:

200ml (⁴∕₅ cup) butter

250ml (1 cup) sugar

2.5ml (½ tsp) salt

5ml (1 tsp) vanilla

3 eggs

500ml (2 cups) self raising flour

200 ml (⁴∕₅ cup) milk

440g cooked apples

ground cinnamon

25ml (2 tbsp) sugar

Ingredients for the syrup:

75ml (6 tbsp) sugar

50ml (4 tbsp) butter

25 ml (2 tbsp) lemon juice

Method

Preheat the oven to 190˚C (375˚F). Grease an ovenproof baking dish.
Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat until very soft and creamy. Add the salt and vanilla.
Add one egg at a time, beating between each addition.
Taking turns add the sifted flour and milk into the egg mixture and mix everything well.
Place half the batter in the greased dish. Pack the cooked apples on top of this and sprinkle with ground cinnamon. Pour over the rest of the batter and sprinkle a mixture of ground cinnamon and sugar on top (about 2 tbsp sugar mix with 2,5ml cinnamon).
Bake for about 25 minutes. After the first ten minutes reduce the heat to 180˚C (350˚F). (My ovenproof dish was a bit deep, so I added about 5 minutes extra baking time)
To make the syrup add the three ingredients together and cook for about 5 minutes until the syrup changes colour.
When taking the dish out pierce holes in the crust of the cake and pour the warm syrup over the cake.
Serve while still warm with cream or ice cream or just like that.
Enjoy!