A delicious cake doesn’t need a long list of ingredients. This fruity recipe by Mary Berry calls for less than 10 and makes two loaves – one to eat now and one to freeze for later
Apples, a fruit that’s readily available throughout the year in the UK, make for an affordable addition to your weekly grocery haul. Dessert apples are particularly great for baking and pair wonderfully with cinnamon in a loaf cake.
In her book Mary Berry Cooks, Mary shares a recipe for a delightful apple loaf cake. She says: “This is a lovely moist apple loaf cake which I love to serve sliced and buttered – and it’s very quick and simple to make.”
The cake doesn’t call for any heavy buttercream layers but instead features a sweet apricot glaze. Even better, you’re likely to already have seven of the eight ingredients needed for this recipe at home.
READ MORE: ‘Best’ mattress eases ‘hip and back pain’ and ‘improves sleep substantially’
Ingredients
- 75g butter, softened
- 200g self-raising flour
- 100g light muscovado sugar
- One tsp ground cinnamon
- Three dessert apples, about 350g before peeling
- Three free-range eggs, beaten
- 1-2 tbsp demerara sugar, to taste
- Two tbsp warmed, sieved apricot jam
Method
Start by preheating your oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4, then get cracking on the batter. Grab a large mixing bowl and rub the butter into the flour until it takes on the texture of fine breadcrumbs.
Alternatively, you can use a food processor to blitz the ingredients together in no time.
Next, mix in the sugar and cinnamon and set aside. Peel, core, and dice two and a half apples and stir them into the cake mixture along with the eggs, then beat until well combined.
This recipe yields two loaves, so you’ll need two loaf tins. If you only have one, simply save half the mixture for later.
Grease the tins with butter to prevent sticking, then evenly distribute the mixture.
Thinly slice the remaining half apple and arrange the slices in a row down the middle of each cake, reports the Express.
Sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown. The loaves should have risen and feel firm in the middle, and be just pulling away from the sides of the tin.
To finish off, glaze the tops of the cakes with the apricot jam. Let them cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then turn out and leave to cool further on a wire rack.
