Pepper-hot apple cake

The apples are falling off my trees as fast as I can core, peel, slice and bag them for freezing. At this time of year, when you’ve apples galore, try recipes like this which are extremely generous with the fruit; a cake crammed with them will be darkly moist and juicy.

Freshly ground black pepper and a tiny pinch of cayenne lift the cinnamon in this cake and somehow make the apples taste all the more applesome. I’ve made a cream cheese icing for no other reason that that it’s my favourite. If you want to try something different, try a buttercream icing with two teaspoons of ground cinnamon worked through it instead.

You’ll need:

Cake
4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and diced into ½-inch squares
2 eggs
4 oz softened butter
4 fl oz (8 tablespoons) milk
1 lb castor sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
6 twists of the pepper grinder
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 lb flour

Icing
8 oz cream cheese
10 oz icing sugar

Place all the cake ingredients except the apples in a large bowl, and mix thoroughly using a hand blender or a wooden spoon and elbow grease. When the ingredients are well blended, add the apple chunks to the bowl and combine with the other ingredients. Pour everything into a greased springform tin, and bake at 180° C for an hour. After an hour, test with a skewer (if the skewer comes out sticky, the cake is not finished). When the cake is cooked, set aside to cool.

Blend the cream cheese and icing sugar and spread over the surface of the cake when it has cooled. This cake is especially nice in the afternoon with a big cup of tea.

4 Replies to “Pepper-hot apple cake”

  1. I sent this to my mum, as it looks rather reminiscent of the spicy German cakes we used to have when we lived out there. It looks delicious, and (shh) possibly better than the German ones! Mutti’s drowning in cooking apples at home, so hopefully she can put some of them to a good use. One quick question: have you any idea what the keeping potential of this cake would be?

  2. I followed this recipe yesterday, and it was great – highly applesome indeed!

    However, I found that the batter was waaay too dry just before adding the apples. It was like cookie dough. It just formed a ball, and you certainly wouldn’t be able to pour it.
    In the end I added some milk to thin it out a bit, and it worked a treat!

    So… were there some liquid ingredients missing from the recipe?

  3. HELLO! i just stumbled upon your site/blog while looking for a Battenburg(berg) cake recipe and have had trouble leaving it! thank you, thank you for such wonderful recipes. my mouth has been watering for two days. and your writing style makes it even more difficult to surf away from. simply charming!
    Ellen in Canada

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