The humble apple needs a mention here. I can’t possibly leave it out as we are currently surrounded by them; tonnes of different varieties and flavours from tooth achingly sharp cooking apples to golden sweet russets.
In a bid to encourage my children to eat more apples, I once made them toffee apples. We had so much fun making them - it took about 2 hours just to get the toffee right - then watching the dipped apples set….all the excitement and build up……and then they just licked, chewed and cracked all the toffee off and left the poor, sad looking apples on the table top.
So I have created a kind of toffee apple cake of sorts, in memory of that day!
Toffee Apple Cake
For the cake:
- 175g of soft butter, plus extra for greasing
- 150g of granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 200g of self-raising flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 150g of ground almonds
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3 apples, large (approx. 400g), peeled, cored and finely sliced
For the toffee sauce:
- 100g of butter
- 100g of light muscovado sugar
- 150ml of double cream
Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/Gas 3. Grease and base line a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin.
First make your toffee sauce by melting all the ingredients together in a pan over a low heat and stirring and bubbling until golden, about 2 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and cream together until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten eggs, adding a large spoonful of flour after each to stop the mixture curdling. Once the eggs are combined, beat in the vanilla extract, then add the remaining flour, ground almonds and baking powder. Fold in well.
Pour half the mixture into your prepared tin and spread in an even layer. Arrange half the apple slices in a swirled layer, then spoon over half the toffee sauce. Repeat with the remaining cake mixture, apples and toffee sauce (leave a bit of toffee sauce for final drizzling, if you can).
Bake in the oven for 1 hour–1 hour 10 minutes (check for doneness with a skewer after 1 hour). The cake will rise up during baking and can drip over the edge, so place a foil-lined tray underneath to catch any toffee drips.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for at least 45 minutes before unmoulding. Drizzle with the remaining toffee sauce and serve warm with ice cream or cold with hot tea.