When life gives you eating apples that have sat in your fruit bowl for a while and no-one seems to be eating them, make apple cake (said no-one, ever). But here I am, having found myself making this particular cake two weeks in a row because the apples were sitting staring at me. With a bit of google help to find a recipe that didn’t need cooking apples, this is what Google AI and I came up with. Cinnamon? Yes please. Streusal/crumble topping? Really yes please. This makes 12 chunky chunks and it’s rather lovely with some cream or ice-cream for pud, but here it is with a cup of tea while we were gardening.
Ingredients
Cake
150g unsalted butter (I use stork)
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs
200g self-raising flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 eating apples, whatever type you’ve got
Streusel topping
100g plain flour
80g salted butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g light brown sugar
Method
- Line a 20cm square tin (or similar) with baking paper (rip off a suitably sized piece, screw it up in a ball, then smooth it out roughly and press it into the tin vaguely folding the corners to make it fit).
- Cream together the butter/stork and sugar with a stand mixer, handheld electric whisk (or even by wooden spoon if you’re feeling strong) for a good 5 minutes until pale and fluffy.
- Turn on your oven to 160°C (fan).
- Beat in the eggs one by one, then use a spatular to mix in the flour and cinnamon until well combined and no patchy floury bits remain.
- Peel, core and chop the apples into large pieces, then mix into the cake batter.
- Dollop into the prepared tin, spreading it evenly across the tin and into the corners so it’s level.
- Put the flour for the topping into a seperate large bowl and chop in the butter. Use your fingertips to rub the butter gently into the flour until it looks like large breadcrumbs. Don’t worry about being too precise, it’s most definitely a rustic topping, not fine dining.
- Stir in the cinnamon and sugar, then dump the mix all over the top of the uncooked cake.
- Bake for 35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, then remove from the oven and leave to cool before chopping up and storing in an airtight tin.
Notes
I only use a square tin because it makes chopping it up easier, but this would be fine in a round tin.
I see no reason not to swap out the apples for tinned fruit of whatever kind you happen to have – I’m going to go with tinned pears and swap out the cinnamon for some almond extract, maybe even lumps of marzipan, or chopped almonds both in the cake and streusel for extra crunchy bits.
