Apple Cake

So I went apple picking at a friends house last week. She has a huge apple tree, which always produces several million apples, and she doesn’t mind me helping myself to 4 bags of them. Yippee!

My main mission with these apples is to make apple chilli jelly. I made this last year and it was a big hit, so am making more this year. However, that still leaves me about 3 bags of apples.

I found a great apple cake recipe on the bbc good food website (here) and thought i’d try it.

It was very easy to make, cooked well, and most importantly, after the first tasting, the husband and myself gave it the thumbs up!

I’ve had a fab couple of days at home, baking (buns, cakes, pies) and really would rather not be going back to work tomorrow!!

Cakey bakey goodness

I love baking, and regularly make cakes to take into work or give to my neighbour. Of course, the husband and myself get plenty too, although if you listen to him, the last time he got home made cake was somewhere round about the same time as the civil war!

So here are a couple of cakes I have made which have gone down really well.

Firstly a cake I adapted from a Nigella recipe for chocolate cherry cupcakes.  I wanted a full sized cake, and wanted it to be gloriously moist, chocolatey, easy and visually stunning.  This cake is really dark, and topped with a white chocolate frosting is really striking when it’s cut.

Here’s my amended recipe:

125g butter

100g dark chocolate

1 jar cherry jam – I use the Hartleys

150g sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

150g self raising flour

Melt the butter in a pan over a low heat. Add in the chocolate and give it a stir. Take it off the heat and stir until the chocolate is melted. Add in the jam, sugar and eggs. When it’s well mixed, stir in the flour.

Pour it into a prepared cake tin – 23cm diameter. And pop into a preheated oven at 180 for about 40 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean. Keep an eye on it, as i can’t remember exaclty how long it was in the oven for. Let it cool for 10 mins in the tin before turning it out to cool completely.

For the frosting, mix 200g melted white chocolte with 250g mascarpone and spread it over the entire cake

Following my Christmas cake success I made my neice a cake for her 16th birthday too, and decorated it properly. She’s not got a sweet tooth, so the appearance was really more important than the taste, although, I did make a very tasty cake!

This was a cake made from the BBC Good Food recipe site – the middle layer fo their 3 tier wedding cake. I decorated with with ready to roll icing –  and some flowers cut from the same icing – some coloured lilac. Finished off with silver balls and edible glitter.