Mrs Powell's Recipes
Toffee Apple Cake
Hello there. I’m the Housekeeper at Tillingford Hall. I’ve been working here since 1970, when I started as a kitchen assistant when I left school. There were more of us working here back then, but now it’s just me and Herbert – and sometimes Sebastian. But that also means there’s fewer to cook for so I don’t always have an excuse to make my Toffee Apple Cake. Luckily, little Hatty adores it so I’ll be making it again this weekend.
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We’ve always had more than enough apples at Tillingford Hall as there’s a good orchard. The head gardeners have always looked after it and kept planting new trees to replace the old ones that have reached the end of their days. We’ve got lots of varieties but my favourite, and by far the most useful, are the Bramleys.
When he was a boy, Guy used to love picking up windfalls and bringing them to me. I taught him how to make lovely apple puree, but when he was a nipper, he wasn’t so keen on it. Like most kiddies, he preferred cake to fruit, so I made up some interesting ways to use it up, and this is everyone’s favourite.
I don’t weigh things but Guy said I couldn’t give you the recipe without proper weights in so I’ve tried to work it out and I’ve put it in metric as apparently that’s what most people use these days, although I always use pounds and ounces myself.
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First, you’ll need to line a 20cm (8-inch) square cake tin. If you don’t have one, use a 20cm round tin or a loaf tin. Anything with a bigger surface area will come out too thin and end up like the base of a Jaffa Cake – not the effect we’re looking for. And you’ll need to grease and line it with baking paper – the toffee could make this stick to the tin so don’t stint on this stage.
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I use gluten-free flour because Lord T is gluten intolerant, but it’s much dearer than normal flour so you can use normal white self-raising flour if you prefer. I like the slightly grainy, rustic texture the gluten-free flour (which has a lot of maize flour in it) gives this cake, so I do recommend it if you can afford it.
For the toffee
200g apple puree – you should get this much from 2 good Bramleys.
75g brown sugar, 75g butter (or vegan butter if you’re unfortunate enough to be dairy intolerant, God help you).
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For the cake
4 eggs. Weigh them and note down the weight, unless you’ve got a better memory than me.
Caster sugar, Stork baking margarine and Self Raising flour, each the same weight as the eggs. If you’re using gluten-free flour, add a teaspoon of xanthan gum to improve the grain. Gluten free doesn’t need sifting, normal does. If you insist on weights, it’s probably about 250g of each if you’re using medium sized eggs.
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What to do
First, make the apple puree. Core, peel and slice your apples and cut them into 1-inch(ish) chunks (no need to be precise here), pop them in a microwaveable plastic bowl (make sure you didn’t warm up Lord T’s onion soup in it last night otherwise your cake will taste of onions – it takes a few goes in the dishwasher to get rid of onion smell from plastic bowls, I find) with a couple of tablespoons of water (might as well use hot if you’ve just boiled the kettle) and do on full power for a minute or two. They should turn into fluff if they’re Bramleys. Eating apples will take much longer.
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Meanwhile, you can make the toffee. Weigh out your butter and sugar and put them in a pan on medium heat. When it starts to sizzle, keep a good eye on it and stir it frequently – you want the sugar and butter well melded together, turning caramelly, but it mustn’t go hard because (a) it’ll be hell’s delight to clean the pan and (b) you won’t be able to stir it into the cake mixture. When it’s caramelly but still good and runny, add in the apples and stir it all around. No need to mix it too thoroughly – this cake’s going to be marbled so we don’t want it to be too consistent. Take it off the heat and leave it to cool. Ideally, you’d do this ages before so it’s completely cool but it’s not that important so just do what you can.
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Now it’s time for the cake. Make sure you’ve greased and lined your tin. And now you can turn on the oven to 180ËšC / GM4 – or use the bottom right baking oven if you’re using an Aga (but you’d better check yours in case it’s different to ours).
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Cream the marge and caster sugar together to make a fluffy cream – you can tell it’s ready when it starts to go paler. I do this with an electric whisk, but you can do it by hand. If you’re going to do this, I’d wait a few minutes before turning the oven on because it’s going to take you a lot longer and you’ll just be wasting that heat, unless you’re using an Aga, of course.
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Now whisk your eggs (break them first, obviously) in a jug and start to add them gradually, beating all the time. Add a spoonful of flour with the last one. When that’s all nicely mixed, use a metal spoon to fold in the flour, keeping as much air in as you can.
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Lastly, gently swirl the toffee mixture into the cake mix. Don’t mix it too much or you’ll lose the marbled effect, but don’t leave big areas of toffee apple or the cake might collapse.
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Tip it into the tin, put the tin on a baking tray in case of leakage (you don’t want to be cleaning burnt toffee off the bottom of your oven, believe me) and pop the lot in the oven for 35-40 minutes. Usual thing – when it’s ready it will look a nice brown colour (darker than a normal sponge) and a skewer should come out clean – but try several areas, if it’s not clean, you might just have hit a seam of toffee apple.
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Leave it to cool completely before you try to take it out of the tin. This is very important, isn’t it, Hatty? Last week, she took it out before it was completely cool and the sides collapsed. You need to let the toffee set.
This cake is very good with a cup of tea but also lovely as a dessert with warm apple puree and ice cream.
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This makes 16 decent pieces. Guy and Sebastian used to eat a whole one between them in an afternoon when they were teenagers, but these days, this cake will last the weekend. If you are going to take more than two days to eat it I suggest you pop it in the fridge - it's very moist and could go mouldy quite quickly, especially if you've used windfalls.
