Cider cake

For Mr CC’s birthday we took a luxury train trip right the way across the country to Somerset; the carriages were all authentic Pullman carriages from the Art Deco era (the sort of train someone usually gets murdered on in an Agatha Christie tale…luckily our trip was less eventful!) – ours had been used by the Queen for a trip so we felt pretty pampered:

I think I mentioned a week or two back that, wherever we visit, I try to buy a fridge magnet and honey.  Honey didn’t seem right for Somerset so I flexed the rule to mean ‘local food produce’ and came back with a rather lovely little jug of cider.  If I’m being entirely honest it was the jug that swayed me more than the cider.

The cider is somewhere between the extremely fizzy ciders you find in supermarkets and the more traditional flat cider.  ‘Flat’ always sounds an unappealing description; it has a critical edge to it, but all I mean is it’s not fizzy.  While I’m always partial to a bit of fizz I must confess to rather liking the less carbonated varieties as I seem to taste the apple more somehow.  I also thought it would be nice for baking with, hence this week’s choice of cake.

The addition of the cinnamon is lovely because it emphasises the apple element and conjures up the flavours you expect from an apple pie.  The sponge is a light texture and makes the cake very eatable (I know – all cakes fall into this category, but there is just something about a soft, crumbly sponge!).  I added a sprinkling of sugar on the top for a bit of crunch.

Ingredients

150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g light muscovado sugar, plus 2 tablespoons extra for the topping
3 eggs
340g plain flour
1 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
225ml cider

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C/350F/gas mark 4.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and pale – it won’t go truly whippy, as it would with caster sugar, as the muscovado is grainier.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Weigh out the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon and mix together.

Fold in a third of the flour mix, followed by a third of the cider.

Repeat until all the ingredients are incorporated.

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Sprinkle the additional sugar over the top.

Bake for approximately 40-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin for approximately 20 minutes, until you can safely handle to de-tin. 

Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

The cake will keep for several days in an airtight tin.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Cider crumble slice

To some people, apples conjure up an Autumnal feeling. However, I saw on the BBC news this week that English apples are being picked now, in July, and it’s the earliest they’ve been harvestable for decades. It’s probably something to do with the odd sunshine-and-showers (ok, downpours) summer we’re having but I got distracted by images of lovely apples and forgot to listen to “the science bit”!

In tribute to English apples, I decided to make this traybake; however, there’s a small confession that I couldn’t find any for sale yet (I guess picking takes a while!) so have used imported Granny Smiths. I make no secret that apple is my favourite fruit to bake with – I love the flavour, the texture, and the look of it.

Cider works so well in cakes – it adds a warm, well rounded, fruitiness to any cake and doesn’t have a harsh alcoholic flavour. I used an oak matured still cider made by H. Weston & Sons based in Much Marcle, Herefordshire. They’ve been making cider since 1880 so – as you’d imagine – it was pretty good stuff! Much Marcle is a brilliant name; it sounds like it would be a kind hearted character in a Dickens novel.

Buy good cider, it really is worth the extra money, particularly when it will flavour the whole cake. Plus, this recipe only uses 150ml whereas bottles tend to be 500ml...you want something decent to polish off!

I’ve used sultanas and walnuts, but you could substitute raisins, or even dates if you wished, and I’m sure any nut would work! Apple’s so versatile that there are few other fruits or nuts it won’t compliment.

Ingredients

For the cake:

20g unsalted butter
1 ½ tablespoons golden syrup
150ml cider
250g self raising flour
½ teaspoon ground ginger
45g soft brown sugar
75g sultanas
75g walnuts, chopped
1 egg

For the topping:

1 large Granny Smith apple – or any other tart eating apple
40g unsalted butter
2 ½ tablespoons caster sugar
60g plain flour
75g walnuts, chopped

Optional: a dusting of icing sugar before serving
Thick cream

Method

Preheat the oven to 170˚C/fan oven 150˚C/325˚F/Gas mark 3.

Line a 20cm x 30cm baking tin with baking paper. I used a disposable tin traybake cases and used spray on cake release.

Start by making the cake: place the butter and golden syrup into a saucepan and melt together over a gentle heat.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cider – put to one side.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, ginger, sugar, sultanas and walnuts.

Add the golden syrup mixture along with the egg and stir until well combined.

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Now make the topping: peel, core and chop the apple into rough chunks about 1.5 cm big.

In a saucepan (use one larger than you need just for the butter as the other ingredients will be added) melt the butter then stir in the sugar, flour, chopped apple and walnuts. It will be a dry mix.

Spread this topping over the cake batter already in the baking tin – I found this easiest to do by hand.

Level the surface then bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. Mine took exactly 30 minutes.

Leave to cool in the baking tin, on a wire rack.

A dusting of icing sugar just before serving really “pretties them up”!

Serve in generous squares with thick cream.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have made.

Eat.

Guernsey cider cake (Gâche à cidre)

I’m still in the midst of my work travels but snatched some time to bake this cake. Travelling for work eats up time like nothing else, and even when you have free time you mostly can’t do with it what you would like to because you’re not at home! Having said that, there are some plusses and the biggest for me are finding out about the place I’m visiting and enjoying the local shops and markets.

I have spent most of the past two weeks in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which is part of the Channel Islands. The Islands are a British Crown Dependency but not part of the UK. Geographically they are nearer to France than England. “Enough of the geography”, I hear you shout, “where’s the cake?” Here it is:


In the independent bookshop I found local cookbooks featuring Guernsey traditional recipes. It struck me, on browsing these, that Guernsey has a fondness for apples and cake. Suddenly I felt right at home!


Cider cake caught my attention because I had a hankering for sultanas. In the same way that you soak dried fruit in brandy for a Christmas cake, you soak sultanas in cider for this cake. Here they are sitting in a bath of fizzy cider:


There are options too – the recipe notes that you can bake one large cake or cupcakes. The rustic nature of the ingredients – sultanas, brown sugar, cinnamon etc made me opt for a large cake. I added my twist to the cake, which will probably have the traditionalists seething, with a vanilla custard buttercream topping. A lot of buttercream topping.....


The aroma of the cake whilst cooking deserves a mention! It was a lovely warm appley smell with a hint of spice. It’s what I’d term a rustic, farmhouse-y sort of cake. Much as I love fancy cakes this is the sort of thing that really gets my taste buds salivating!

Here’s the cake fresh from the oven:


Here it is before it got ‘buttercreamed’:


On eating the cake we all agreed that it was the best cake we’d had for a long time...it’s that good! It’s light and moist but also crumbly and oh so comforting. I think it would be delicious without the buttercream but, for my taste, the buttercream added an extra layer of loveliness.


Ingredients:
For the cake:
180g sultanas
150ml dry cider
250g soft brown sugar
180g unsalted butter
Zest of one lemon (optional, I left it out)
2 eggs
250g self raising flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the custard buttercream (optional):
150ml milk (whole or semi skimmed)
125g caster sugar
2 egg yolks
175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

How to make:

- Soak the sultanas in the cider for at least an hour before making the cake. This will give the sultanas time to absorb some cider and become fat and juicy.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line a deep 20cm round cake tin. You can, if you prefer, make cupcakes. I’m not sure how many you will get because I made the 20cm cake.
- Cream together the butter and sugar. This will take quite a while as brown sugar is coarser than caster sugar. Don’t skimp as this is an important stage; using my kitchenaid at a medium speed it took about 10 minutes until I had something light and smooth.
- If you’re using it, add the lemon zest and stir in.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Fold in the flour and cinnamon.
- Stir in the sultanas and cider. The sultanas won’t completely absorb the cider so make sure you pour in all the cider too!
- Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer comes out cleanly. Mine took 1 hour 10 minutes. If you are making cupcakes instead, check after 20 minutes.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack. You can make the cake a day before serving it but I recommend making the buttercream on the day.
- To make the buttercream: place the milk and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil gently, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
- Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl and then pour the milk onto the yolks whisking all the time.
- Return the custard mix to the saucepan and, stirring all the time, cook over a medium heat just until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Take your time over this – if you have too fierce a heat your eggs might scramble!
- Pour into a bowl and leave to cool slightly.
- Beat the butter until it is fluffy and light.
- Gradually beat in the now room temperature custard to the butter.
- Finally beat in the vanilla extract.
- Spread over the top of the cake or cupcakes.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.