Suffering a surfeit of windfalls? This damp, delicious and spicy cake is a great way to use up excess cooking apples or apple sauce. As ever with my mum’s recipes, she prefers a thick layer of icing on top (and this one dates back to the seventies, I can remember her baking it for PTA events with a lurid green topping). This is of course optional, as are the raisins (kryptonite to the male members of my family!).
Mum’s Apple Sauce Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 255 g apple sauce around 3 large cooking apples, once peeled, cored and cooked
- 200 g self-raising flour
- 140 g soft brown sugar
- 115 g raisins optional
- 115 g butter softened, salted
- 100 g walnuts chopped
- 3 eggs large
- 1.5 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp baking powder
Icing
- 150 g icing sugar
- 40 g hazelnuts or walnuts chopped
- 1 tbsp milk up to 2 tbsp
- 0.5 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Apple Sauce
- Peel, core, and chop the apples into small chunks.
- Place them in a saucepan with the water over medium heat. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes until completely soft.
- Mash or blend until smooth and leave to cool.
Cake
- Preheat your oven to 180C (Gas Mark 4, 350F). Grease an 8-inch cake tin, line the base with greaseproof paper, and grease the paper.
- Sift the self-raising flour, baking powder, and mixed spice into a bowl.
- Cream the butter and soft brown sugar together in another bowl. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little of the flour mixture with each egg.
- Fold in the remaining flour, followed by the raisins (if using), chopped walnuts, and apple sauce.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Leave the cake to rest in the tin for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Icing
- Gradually add the milk and vanilla extract to the icing sugar, stirring continuously until you reach a thick, smooth, spreading consistency.
- Stir in the chopped hazelnuts or walnuts until evenly distributed.
- Spread or drizzle the icing over the top of the cooled cake.
