This recipe is from Jess Elliot Dennison’s new cookbook Midweek Recipes and it’s great for this time of year. I’ve tried and tested it and I think you’ll all love it. It is so easy to make and is the perfect use for autumn apples …
Serves 8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
6 sprigs rosemary
200g salted butter
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
225g soft brown sugar
2 free range eggs
(3 tbsp rum, optional)
300g cooking apples, peeled and cored
50g flaked almonds
Method
1. Place the rosemary and butter in a pan, then heat on medium for 4-5 minutes, stirring regularly. You’re looking for the butter to foam up and turn golden before turning dark brown. A few dark specks will appear and sit on the base of the pan, and it will smell nutty.
2. Drain the butter through a fine sieve, discarding the rosemary, then allow the butter to cool gently. It doesn’t matter if the odd bit of rosemary is still in the butter.
3. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Lightly grease a deep 23cm loose-bottomed cake tin and line with greaseproof paper.
4. Measure the self raising flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, rum (if using) into a bowl and add the melted butter, that will be slightly cooled now.
5. Mix well with a wooden spoon until completely combined. It’ll feel very thick for a cake batter, but this is correct – don’t worry.
6. Spread half of this mixture in the prepared tin. Thickly slice the apples and lay on top of the mixture in the tin, piling them mostly towards the centre. Spoon the remaining mixture over the apples. This is an awkward thing to do, but just make sure that the mixture covers the centre well as it will spread out in the oven.
7. Sprinkle with the almonds and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour until the cake is golden and coming away from the sides of the tin.
Top tips:
1. You can make this cake the day ahead, just keep it well covered when storing overnight.
2. I love serving this with crème fraîche to cut through the richness of the butter.
3. Feel free to play with substituting the rosemary for other woody herbs like sage and thyme. @kittycoles
Recipe extracted from Midweek Recipes: Simple Cooking From My Edinburgh Studio by Jess Elliot Dennison, (Elliot’s).
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