Seasonal local food recipe No. 297 – Hugh’s chunky apple and marmalade cake
I am going to make this cake for pudding tonight. It’s from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Fruit Every Day! The recipe calls for eating apples but I’m trying it with the veg box apples which are cookers. If you have a nut allergy leave out the ground almonds and substitute with an extra 5 g flour.
Serves 10-12
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Ingredients
3 tbsp whisky
100 g sultanas
100 g ground almonds
175 g light brown flour
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch salt
500 g apples, peeled, cored and cut into thick slices
200 g butter, softened
200 g dark muscovado sugar
3 large free-range eggs
150 g thick-cut orange marmalade
25 g demerara sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C/Gas mark 3. Grease a 20 cm springform cake tin, line the base with baking parchment and lightly butter the paper. Warm the whisky in a small pan, then remove from the heat, add the sultanas and leave to soak while you prepare the cake.
Put the ground almonds, flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, combine thoroughly and set aside. Beat the butter and muscovado sugar together thoroughly until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour mix with each, and amalgamating each thoroughly before adding the next. Add the remaining flour mix and fold in. Beat the marmalade to loosen it, then fold into the cake mixture. Fold in the sultanas and whisky and finally the slices of apple.
Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared cake tin and scatter the Demerara sugar over the surface. Bake for about 1 1/4 hours, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Let the cake cool slightly in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
