Balliol Apple Cake

There are many apple cake recipes in Britain of course but I do recommend mine, not least because it is a recipe I had to make 5 times, tweaking with each version, before I came up with the final one. This cake is tender, light, moist and full of apple flavour. If you make the extra effort and make the candied apple click here for the recipe, you will be rewarded, however you can make the easier version, using fresh diced apple.

For this cake you will need

200g of self raising flour
130g of ground almonds
230g of light muscovado sugar
160g of melted butter
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
300g of candied apple + 100g of grated fresh apple
OR 400g of diced fresh apple
2 tablespoons of demerara sugar

Begin by lining a 20cm by 8cm round cake tin, with baking parchment. Make the candied apple if using by following the recipe on the above link, you will need to use 400g of diced apples, 120g of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid but follow the instructions. The proportions are different when you make larger amounts.
Begin mixing the cake by melting the butter and allowing to cool completely, at least 15 minutes. Heat up the oven to 160C.
In a mixing bowl, combine the butter, muscovado sugar, salt and eggs until smooth. Add the ground almonds and mix in thoroughly. Finally fold in the flour followed by the candied apple and grated apple if using or diced fresh apples, Place in the prepared cake tin and sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar on the top. Bake in the center of the oven for and hour and ten minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted. Allow to cool completely before removing from the tin.

Notes:
It's really important to allow the melted butter to cool completely before mixing in with the other ingredients, if you don't, the heat will activate the baking powder and you will end up with a cake that rises too soon then sinks.