They say an Apple a day keeps the Doctor away. Well, I’m hoping the Doctor would approve of my Autumn apple delight!!!
I love Autumn, for me it brings about hope and a new start. It also brings me a wonderful haul of apples from our various apple trees. So I decided this year I’d make something new with them and here I present my spiced apple loaf cake, made with delicious homemade apple sauce and believe me it’s so much better than shop bought! (I also made the most delicious cupcakes with the same mixture so check out the notes to see the cooking time.). Also if you are using shop bought apple sauce skip steps 1 & 2.
Spiced Apple Loaf Cake
Equipment
- 1 1lb loaf tin Or cupcake tin if you are making these as cupcakes (see notes)
Ingredients
- 2 large free range eggs – at room temperature (when weighed in the shells they are around 150g)
- 150 g Softened butter
- 150 g Light brown sugar you can use muscovado sugar if you prefer
- 150 g Self raising flour
- 1 tsp Pumpkin spice mix or Mixed Spice
- 5 tbsp homemade apple sauce (See below for apple sauce ingredients)
- 2 Large Bramley apples (for apple sauce)
- 30 g Softened butter (for apple sauce)
- 30 g Light brown sugar (for apple sauce) you can use muscovado sugar if you prefer
Instructions
- First make your apple sauce.Peel and core your apple. Give it a quick wash then chop into small pieces. Add the apple, butter and sugar to a saucepan and cover with a lid.
- Turn this to a medium heat and cook for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn. When the apple is soft, turn the heat off. If it's still lumpy you can use a potato masher or a fork to create a smoother consistency. We are not looking for a paste, small lumps as this is lovely when eaten in the cake. Transfer to a bowl to cool down. (See notes below for storage).
- Now heat your oven to 150 degrees fan oven.Add the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat until paler in colour – I normally beat for at least 2 minutes to create air into the mixture. Make sure you scrape down the bowl as you want it fully mixed.
- Break the eggs into a jug and mix with a fork to combine. Gradually beat the egg into the butter and sugar mixture, keep adding until you have used it all and everything is thoroughly combined.
- Add the pumpkin or mixed spice to the flour and sieve into a separate bowl to remove any lumps.I bought my pumpkin spice mix online at Buy Whole Foods but if you don't like the taste of cloves stick to using mixed spice.
- Fold the flour into the mixture – we do this using a spatula and going round the outside of the bowl and through the middle. When this is combined, stop as we want to keep in as much air as possible.
- Add the apple sauce and stir gently to fully combine.Transfer all of the mixture into a loaf tin lined with baking paper.
- Bake in the middle of the oven for around 45 minutes (the baking time relies mainly on your oven so the best way to see if it is cooked is to put a cake tester or cocktail stick into the middle of the loaf cake. If it comes out clean it's ready, if there's mixture showing, bake for another 2 minutes and test again. We are looking for the cake tester to be clean.
- When cooked transfer the tin to a cooling rack and leave to cool for around 15 minutes before you lift it out of the tin. For an added little touch dust with some icing sugar.You can enjoy this warm or cold. Store in an airtight container and because the apple cake has fresh apples its best eaten within 3 days – however its not last that long in our house!
Notes
Notes:
I always weigh my eggs and then match the ingredients to the weight of the eggs. So feel free to adapt the measurements to match your eggs and if it is a lot less then you will need to reduce the cooking time.
Any leftover applesauce can be kept in the fridge for a few days. If you want to make more apple sauce just increase the recipe. The apple sauce recipe uses brown sugar to give the cake a more intense flavour but you can substitute this for caster sugar if you prefer.
I’ve also tried the apple sauce with my porridge this week and its utterly delicious.
To make these as cupcakes the mixture will give you between 12 – 15. Transfer the mixture when its ready to the cupcake cases and bake for around 21 minutes.
