Autumn Sponge

Here is a very easy quick recipe! Using windfalls or any apples, readily available and cheap this time of year!! Most folk are giving them away if they have a tree! I love cakes using apples and this is the first of two of my favourites. Using simple plain ingredients to make the most delicious cake with a taste of Autumn. Slice it warm for dessert with a dollop of clotted cream! Mmmmm or custard. But equally good cold.

9 oz room temperature butter

9 oz golden caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract [not essence]

[or use 1 vanilla pod]

4 large beaten eggs

10 oz SR flour

½ teaspoon cinnamon [or a little more, if you like it]

3 small ish or 2 larger dessert apples [I used Cox’s], peeled and cored then cut into wedgies [cookers are good too, making a tarter taste]

demerera sugar to dredge the top

Grease, then line the base of a spring form, loose bottomed 8” tin.

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until very light and fluffy, then add the eggs, one at at time….. you know how to do that!! I like to add a teaspoon of the flour along with each egg to stop the mix curdling. Fold in the remaining flour then tip into the tin, very roughly levelling the top.

Push the apple wedgies halfway into the mix, going around the edge in a tight circle, then a few shorter ones in the inner circle, but not right in the centre. Make sure they are only pushed in about halfway. The mix will rise around the apple making a bit of a lumpy pattern. Don’t worry if it looks crowded either! The apples will soften and shrink. Sprinkle the top liberally with the cinnamon and demerera [turbinado] sugar and pop into a pre heated fan oven 160C for about an hour, maybe 5 mins more. Keep checking and test it is done with a small skewer. 

Just lovely, smells divine, so simple. And it’s in the oven in about 10 minutes!