Spiced Sour Cream Cake with Apple & Cinnamon

This apple cake was a case of "arghh! what do I make with bramley apples festering in my fridge?" actually, the apples were fine, but I really had a hankering for apple cake and decided to use up some odds and ends from the cupboard and fridge to make this German-style coffee cake. Bramley apples have a mouth-puckering tartness to them so I just sliced them up and added a drizzle of fructose and cinnamon to take the edge off their crisp acidity.

The wholemeal flour gives a lovely nutty flavour, though the cake dried out a bit the following day, so I'd probably modify the recipe slightly next time and leave out the bran after sifting. Otherwise it's a straightforward recipe and the cake's rather delicious if I do say so myself :-)

Ingredients:

• 100g self-raising plain flour
• 100g plain wholemeal flour (will decrease this to 75g next time and leave out the bran)
• 40g ground almonds
• 175g light brown sugar
• 180ml half-fat sour cream
• 70g butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking bowder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 large Bramley apple, peeled and sliced into moon-shaped slivers (see photo) I made an apple compote out of the other apple. Next time would probably use 1 1/2 apples in the cake

Method: 

Preheat oven to 180 C

Lightly grease a 22cm cake tin (you could use a 20cm which would make the cake taller)

In a large bowl, whick the eggs with the brown sugar un

til fluffy (5-8 minutes should do it)

Add the sour cream, whisk a bit, then sift in all the dry ingredients. Swirl the melted butter through the mixture, then using a large metal spoon make figure-of-eights in the mixture until all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the liquids (see below)

Pour this gently into the cake tin, and scatter the apple pieces on top - you can make a pattern if you want I just placed them randomly (depends how much of an aesthete you are). Sprinkle a bit more cinnamon over the apples and then place the tin on the middle shelf of the oven.

Bake 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out dry.