Monday 17 October 2011

Dutch Apple Cake

It has been a long time since I last blogged and I’m sorry for being away for so long. It was a busy summer with family over from Spain and along the way I lost my blogging mojo. I haven’t done as much baking over the past couple of months but I did bake our favourite cookies a few times, which I’ve blogged about so many times before. A couple of weeks ago we picked our fill of cooking apples from the apple trees during a lovely weekend stay at “The Lodge”. I have enough apples to see me through many bakes. I chose this revisited Dutch Apple Cake to kick-start my blogging and start to make a dent in the mountain of apples.

This flavoursome cake has a very light and fluffy sponge, with a lovely juicy bite from the apple slices and topped with a sugary crust. Great served warm with hot custard or as an afternoon treat with a cuppa.

I now have a Facebook page that I have created for this blog! Hope you will join and say hello :)



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.

14 comments:

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

Nice to have you back Maria. Your cake is a thing of beautiful. I can't stop thinking of a slice of it with custard. i think I will be thinking of that for a while. Might have to make it this week.

Lucie said...

You're back!! Hooray! So lovely to see some of your mouth watering treats again. I dip and out of blogging now, as don't get much time. But I love to see your posts and see all the seasonal treats you whip up. Sending love to you, please keep them coming! :) Lucie X

Choclette said...

Good tp have you back and glad you had a great summer. That apple cake looks so delicious and light.

Nickki said...

Lovely to see you back Maria! That cake looks delicious. I've been baking with apples quite a lot the past couple of weeks. Perfect for this time of year xxxx

Care Bear said...

Welcome back Maria! We missed you. xx

Finla said...

Nice to see you maria. And this apple cake looks so so good, here my MIL mmake this one too.
Will sure jong the FB.

Maggie said...

I love cinnamon and apple. Great cake/pudding here Maria.

Gloria Baker said...

María Im so happy you are here again!! I missed you! really I think you had a busy time!!This cake look delicious, how is your grand child? besos gloria

Brownieville Girl said...

Welcome back Maria - great to see you back.

Love those apples on the top, they look delicious, and the cake's texture looks prefect.

Abitofafoodie said...

That looks extremely delicious! I have lots of apples to use up too and this looks like an excellent way to use some of them. Yummy!

Kim said...

Welcome back, it's lovely to see you back baking/blogging again. And what a way to start! This looks delicious, definitely would have my slice with a dollop of custard. Can't wait to see what else you make with your apple mountain!

Mandy@Withmilkandflour said...

So great to see you back Maria and just in time to help me make use of the cooking apples I have acquired! This cake looks great.

BeadBag said...

we obviously have similar good taste - I love this recipe too.

Chronicles of Dolliedaydream said...

Yay! A (very belated_ welcome back Maria - I am just catching up on your posts.

I've had a baby, moved to France and back again lol since I last stopped by.

We went to manage a teashop (it's a long story) but I did want to say that I used a lot of your recipes whilst I was over there and they turned out a treat. The French customers loved them! So tahnk you :-)