Dutch Apple Cake

I love lazy Sundays like today, having a sleep in and taking a leisurely breakfast to start my day off, while looking through my new slow cooker recipe book. After lusting over a slow cooker for ages, yesterday I decided to take the plunge and buy myself one and I’ve been getting familiar with my new kitchen toy. I also bought The Slow Cooker Cookbook to get me started and chose the Provencal Beef Stew for tonight’s meal. Once I had the beef stew started I then moved onto doing pudding. I’ve had this Dutch Apple Cake recipe book-marked since receiving Bake by Rachel Allen and after seeing this cake propping up on other blogs I couldn’t wait any longer. This cake has a very light and fluffy sponge, with a lovely juiciness from the apple slices and topped with a sugary crust. I will be serving my cake for pudding, alongside hot creamy custard. What could be better than ending a lazy Sunday like this?

Dutch Apple Cake

Makes 12-16 squares

Ingredients
2 Eggs

175g caster sugar, plus 15g extra for sprinkling
½ tsp vanilla extract

85g Butter

75ml Milk

125g plain flour

½ tsp ground cinnamon

2 ¼ tsp Baking powder

2 small (or 1 large) cooking apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

double cream or custard, to serve (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200oC/180oC Fan/Gas Mark 6. Line the sides and base of a 20 x 20cm (8 x 8in) square cake tin with parchment paper. Using an electric whisk, whisk the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until the mixture is thick and mousse-like and the whisk leaves a figure of eight pattern (this will take about 5 minutes). Melt the butter in a saucepan with the milk, then pour onto the eggs, whisking all the time. Sift in the flour, cinnamon and baking powder and fold carefully into the batter so that there are no lumps of flour. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface. Arrange the apple slices over the batter. (They will sink to the bottom.) Sprinkle over a tablespoon of sugar and bake in the oven for ten minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180oC/160oC Fan/Gas Mark 4 and bake for a further 20–25 minutes or until well risen and golden brown. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the tin. Cut into squares and serve warm with cream or custard.