Spiced apple cake

In a previous post, “There are few hours in life more agreeable than the ceremony known as afternoon tea”, I said I would publish the spiced apple cake recipe as it was such a hit with both friends and colleagues.

So here goes ...

Ingredients:

For the topping:

• 3 apples (I used Granny Smith apples)
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice (or if you're in Belgium, the speculoos spice is a great alternative)

For the cake:

• 225g butter, softened
• 225g caster sugar
• 225g self-raising flour
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 4 eggs
• 60ml whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice / speculoos spice

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease a 10 inch (26cm) cake tin and line it with greaseproof paper.

For the topping:

Peel the apples and cut them into wedges. Put the apples and 2 teaspoons spice (whether mixed spice or speculoos) in a saucepan over a low heat for a few minutes to soften a little. 

Place the apple wedges in the base of the cake tin in whatever design you like. If you want a thicker layer of apple, you can do 2 layers of apple on top of each other.

For the cake:

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Add a tablespoon of the flour mix to the butter mix along with one egg. Mix until combined. Repeat the process until all the flour and eggs have been used. Stir in the milk, vanilla and mixed spice. Mix until combined.

Pour the mixture into the greased cake tin on top of the apples and gently smooth with a spatula. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Once out of the oven, leave in the tin for 5-10 minutes, then remove from tin and transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.


I drizzled some caramel on top of mine which was delicious, but it's also tasty 'au naturel' or with some vanilla or cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top. It is a great seasonal cake with the apples and mixed spice flavours ... autumn in a mouthful.

If you have any leftovers, you can always heat it up and have it as a warm dessert with some vanilla ice cream!

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the ceremony known as afternoon tea”

Spiced apple cake with caramel drizzled on top

I completely agree with the title of this post - a great quote from 'The Portrait of a Lady' by Henry James. So when a friend recently suggested a catch up over tea and cake (she knows that if she suggests cake, I will offer to provide the said cake!), we invited a few friends to join us and it soon turned into 13 people for afternoon tea!

Alongside the multiple pots of English tea, I also made a lemon cake with lemon buttercream, a spiced apple cake drizzled with caramel, a homemade alternative to jammy dodgers, and flapjacks.

Cake leftovers were taken to work the next day and my colleagues are still demanding the recipe for the spiced apple cake, so I will publish that in a later blog post.

The jammy dodgers were sables (French butter biscuits) with good quality raspberry jam inside and a little vanilla sugar sprinkled on top. I used this BBC FOOD recipe. They were delicious !

Jammy Dodgers

My Mum is a great baker (and in fact a great chef in general). Growing up we were spoilt with freshly baked goods, and flapjacks are one of her specialities. A few years ago she passed me the recipe and I have had so much success with them - whether for afternoon teas or taking along to football matches as post-match sustenance. They are super easy to make so maybe I will share the recipe at some point ...

 

I ran out of time so the lemon cake was very simply decorated - lemon buttercream with citrus sugar sprinkled on top. Despite the presentation, it was still tasty.

Lemon cake with lemon buttercream

Commissioner Potočnik celebrates 10 years of HEAL

(c) HEAL/De Ribaucourt Photography

The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) recently celebrated their 10 year anniversary and I was lucky enough to be asked to make cakes for this occasion. The EU Commissioner for Environment, Janez Potočnik, was on hand to cut the main cake which was decorated with the HEAL logo.

Janez Potočnik, EU Commissioner for Environment
(c) HEAL/De Ribaucourt Photography

The logo cake was chocolate sponge with a chocolate buttercream filling and decorated with fondant and royal icing. The second cake was an organic spiced apple cake.

Organic spiced apple cake

 

Commissioner Potočnik with HEAL President, Dr. Peter van den Hazel, and HEAL Executive Director, Génon K. Jensen
(c) HEAL/De Ribaucourt Photography