Sunday 18 April 2010

BIG Cake - Spiced Apple Cake


For some reason, I didn't expect this cake to turn out so huge. Nor did I expect to have my worst baking day ever on Friday and throw 3 lots of cake in the bin in frustration !

Friday just WASN'T my day ... I started off making a carrot cake in a 10" round silicone mould, which is a core recipe I use often for large cakes and muffins. It turned out beautifully as per normal. I then made a spiced pineapple and coconut cake to put on top to layer with. That would have been perfect. It looked fab by eye - but on turning out, wasn't quite cooked and the whole thing disintegrated in front of me. This was made worse by the fact I was trying to turn out on to the top of the iced carrot cake. The whole thing was then a complete write off and ended up in the bin. Teach me not to test it when taking out the oven !

Third cake was another spiced coconut and pineapple concoction..... BUT I forgot to put in the eggs. My 3rd disaster !

By this point, I'd run out of both pineapple and coconut. It was just as well we had a glut of eggs and the chickens had done us proud :-P

Attempt 4 created a spiced apple cake which turned out truly yummy and was demolished by office staff on Saturday morning. There was still stacks of it left and that came on a Saturday afternoon picnic to the park with my friend (Nicky) and our toddlers. There was so much of it - that we shared it with other visitors to the park too ! After all - they'd be mad to turn down cake, wouldn't they ?



I made this in a new mould we have in manufacture which should be available at the end of May. It's a large sunflower silicone bakeware mould with double layered petals for extra effect. It looks stunning plain or dusted with icing sugar - you really don't want to do much to it at all.

The Large sunflower mould is just over 10" internal diameter and recipe volumes to suit a standard 10" bundt ring mould / tube pan fit perfectly.



You'll see I've just added all the new moulds coming in May to the website - these are not yet available and I need to work through measurements, weights etc when they arrive.

Recipe

Ingredients

300g cooking apples - peeled, cored and small diced
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp ground ginger



375 g all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
400g granulated sugar
250 ml vegetable oil
60ml milk
3 tsp vanilla essence
4 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

icing sugar for dusting
 
Preheat oven to 180deg C (fan)
 
In a medium bowl, mix the chopped apples, spices and sugar and set aside.
 
In a large bowl, beat the wet ingredients. Sift in dry ingredients and beat on low with electric mixer until all combined.
 
Pour 1/3 of the cake batter into the mould or tin. It's wise to grease brand new silicone moulds for the first time - especially if the cake mix has a high sugar content. The sugar wasn't too bad in this one, so I didn't bother and it came out just fine.
 
Mix the apples into the remaining batter and pour into the mould. The reason I've done this is to get a nice smooth top to the cake after turning out - rather than bits of apple spoiling the look of the top of my cake.
 

This will take 1hour to cook in a 10" tube / bundt pan - or approx 1hour 20 mins in a standard circular cake mould / tin.

Allow to cool until warm and then turn out on a wire rack. When totally cool, dust with icing sugar or glaze as required. Easily serves 12 > 14

This cake eats even better on day 2. My little cake tester (Oliver) had a bit of the cut slice on the Friday afternoon to give it a seal of approval and the rest sat waiting until Saturday. It was definately best the next day after the apples had a chance to release some more moisture. I'm afraid there are no photos of the cake in the park !


Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - April 2010

7 comments:

  1. Cor you must have patience. I would have thrown in the tea-towel and sat in front of the T.V, than attempted to make cake again and again. Good job you had all those eggs. And what a stunning cake too. Lucky people in the park that got a slice! I am bookmarking this recipe. I have a cooking apple tree in the garden. We didn't get any last year. Fingers crossed for this year.

    So glad Oliver, your little cake tester enjoyed your results.

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  2. Thank you.

    I hate to let something like that get the better of me. The angrier I got at it - the more I knew I had to get it right. lol

    If you don't prune apple trees, I believe they only fruit once every other year.... so you may have a bumper crop this year with any luck :-)

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  3. What a bummer to go through all that aggravation. But you stuck at it, now that's determination!

    The final product is gorgeous, darling. What a wonderful mould that it. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Aww - thank you. I was definately having a bad cake day - which is not like me.

    This is very pretty. We've got loads of really interesting and unusual stuff coming in the next month and I'm intending doing a blog giveaway soon - so keep a look out everybody !

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  5. This cake is really pretty, so much so I'm thinking of buying the mould to try it myself, but can you verify the sugar quantity as you say "the sugar's not too bad" in this cake but 400gms + 2tbs in the apple mix seems a lot to me.

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  6. Hie
    I would like to know where i can get these moulds especially the fancy ones like numbers,letters and flowers.

    Alice Musaruro

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  7. Hello

    they can all be found on our website at www.siliconemoulds.com

    kind regards

    Sarah-Jane

    ReplyDelete

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