Pigeon Cottage Kitchen

The apple harvest has been fantastic this year and I like to take a nice cake with me when I am on grandson-sitting duty so I hope you enjoy this one. This is a loaf cake but you could make a round one of course. I prefer to use the ready-made parchment loaf tin liners because it makes the whole process of baking and turning out so easy. It’s rich and buttery and very moist with apple chunks running through the vanilla and lemon cake batter plus a cinnamon sugar apple and almond topping. Perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. With some hot creamy custard you could even serve it as a dessert.

• 225g unsalted butter, melted and allowed to cool
• 4 medium eggs, beaten
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 25g muscovado sugar
• Zest and juice of a lemon
• 250g plain spelt flour
• 1 1/2 tsps baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp flaked almonds
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 4 medium dessert apples (not cooking apples as they will turn to mush in the cake), peeled cored and chopped into bite-sized chunks

To make…

• Preheat the oven to 170C.
• Prep your baking tin. I used a large loaf tin with a cake liner but you could make this in a 23cm round cake tin, buttered and lined at the bottom with baking parchment.
• Prep the apples and toss them in the lemon juice to stop them from discolouring.
• Place the muscovado sugar and all but a tablespoon of the caster sugar in a bowl with the eggs. Mix with a hand held electric whisk until foamy. Gradually add in the cooled melted butter and the vanilla essence.
• Carefully fold in the lemon zest, flour and baking powder.
• Fold in three quarters of the chopped apples and pour into the baking tin.
• Mix the remaining caster sugar and cinnamon together with the rest of the apple chunks. Scatter over the top of the cake batter and then the flaked almonds.
• Bake in the centre of the oven for an hour or until a skewer comes out clean from the middle.
• Remove and allow to cool.

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