Caramelised Dorset Apple Cake

Tomorrow is the 22nd birthday of one of my best friends...which called for a pretty special birthday cake. His absolute favourite cake is a Dorset apple cake, so I decided to soup it up a bit and create a caramelised apple topping!

Apologies for the lack of photos on this blog entry; I whizzed through the preparation so quickly I completely forgot to capture what I was doing!

You will need:
230g self raising flour
25g cornflour
110g butter, cubed
110g caster sugar
1 egg and 1 tbsp milk, whisked together
2 cooking apples - one cut into bite-size chunks (to go into the mix) and one into thin slices (to sit above the mix)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 tbsp soft brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease and line your tin. You can either go for a square one if you want to cut out pieces to or a nice deep round one with a loose bottom, which I went for as I want to present it nicely! When lining the sides of a round tin cut little snips in the bottom of the greaseproof paper to make sure the paper sits nicely (you can kind of see if you click on the photo!).

Sift the self raising flour and cornflour into a nice big bowl.

Cut the butter into the sifted mixture and then rub it in to create a breadcrumb-like mixture. Use your fingertips and keep lifting the mix as you rub in to keep it light!

Stir through the caster sugar before adding the egg and milk, cubed apple and the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Use a spoon and mix it all together; it may look as if there's not enough liquid for it to come together but after a few stirs it will combine I promise! Dollop the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth it down.

Now for the caramelised bit! Place the sliced apple atop the cake batter and sprinkle over the soft brown sugar.

Put the tin in the oven for 22-25 minutes. Check to see that it is cooked by popping a skewer in - if it comes out with a few crumbs adorning the skewer the cake is cooked! It's a very moist cake because of the fruit so the skewer won't necessarily come out sparkling.

Leave the cake to cool a little before pushing it out of the loose-bottomed tin and onto a cooling rack until it has cooled down completely. Decoration with ribbon optional.

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