Welcome back for Week 9!
Last week, I hinted that this week would be something “spicy,” so welcome to a different chapter – Spiced Cakes! This week, I tried my hand at making an Apple and Cinnamon Cake!
This cake is described as something “you would expect to find in a first-class coffee shop or tea room” and is “ideally warmed and [served] with a dollop of clotted cream.” I love a good coffee cake, so I was really excited to try this out! Oh, and who doesn’t like apple and cinnamon together?
To start, I wanted to clarify a few things. One: I don’t have a 9-inch baking tin, so I just used an 8-inch. If you try this recipe at home, just adjust accordingly to whatever sized pan you have. Two: This recipe calls for sultanas, which are made from white, seedless grapes and are typically coated in an oil mixture to speed up the drying process. I couldn’t find any sultanas, so I decided to substitute with golden raisins instead. This may or may not affect the overall taste of the cake, but I’ve never eaten sultanas, so I don’t think I’ll be missing out!
This cake has a relatively simple recipe! For the batter, you just dump everything in together all at once, and mix for about 2 minutes to make sure everything is blended. Instead of caster sugar, this recipe only uses brown sugar, and the batter tasted like a wonderful combination of brown sugar, walnuts, and butter – YUM! Now, when I tell you this batter was thick, I mean it was THICK. It was pretty tough to smooth it out evenly in the pan, but with enough gusto, you can do it!
The interesting thing about this recipe is that the apple and cinnamon aren’t mixed in the batter with everything else. First, I’d like to point out that I’ve never grated an apple, and it just didn’t seem right – ha-ha! Cutting apples, slicing apples, peeling apples – those all seem normal to me. Grating them, however, was really weird! Also, a word to the wise (because I was a little off on my measurements) one grated granny smith apple is approximately 5oz. This recipe called for “cooking apples,” which was a little vague, but granny smith apples came up on every list of cooking apples I could find, so I just went with those.
The assembly of the cake in the tin goes something like this: 1. Spread half the batter into the tin, 2. Sprinkle the apples and cinnamon in an even layer on top, 3. Spread the remaining batter on top of the apples and cinnamon, 4. Sprinkle a whole bunch of extra brown sugar and walnuts on the very top.
Now remember how thick I said the batter was? Well this didn’t really help when I was trying to spread it out evenly over the apples and cinnamon, considering they all wanted to stick to each other, but I did my best! Oh, and whenever brown sugar and walnuts are involved, especially when the recipe tells me to “sprinkle generously,” I tend to go overboard. The more the merrier, right? Ha-ha!
This recipe calls for 1 ¼ - 1 ½ hours in the oven, so I first checked it after 55 minutes, just in case. It was definitely not done, and I ended up leaving it in the oven for a total of 1 hour and 19 minutes. The cake has a beautiful color to it, and it smells a-maz-ing!
There isn’t any icing for this cake (which I’m not necessarily too upset about ha-ha!), but the recipe does say to dust it with icing sugar, so that’s what I did! For looks, this cake definitely gets a 10/10.
Overall, I’m definitely giving this cake a 5/5! Not only is it pleasing to look at, it has a wonderful apple taste, the walnuts give it a nice crunch, and the cinnamon/brown sugar working together is heavenly! I will have to say, the raisins get lost a little bit, but if you get a bite with a raisin in it, it gives a nice extra tartness. As you can see in the picture above, once I cut a piece, it got a little crumbly. Normally, crumbly can mean the cake is too dry, but this cake defied the norm! The moisture from the apples kept it nice and gooey, but still had a pleasant balance of soft vs. crunchy.
I would highly recommend this cake to anyone who wants to bring a crowd pleaser to a brunch, potluck, bridal shower, afternoon tea, or just have it at home! This was definitely a win!
That’s it for week nine, the apple and cinnamon cake! Thank you for following along with me, and, again, if you have any questions, feel free to use the “Get in Touch” feature on my “About Me” page and subscribe to get updates on posts!
See you next week!
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