Spiced apple cake
- Preparation and cooking time
- Total time
- + cooling
- Easy
- Serves 10-12
Ingredients
- 200g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for the tin
- 200g soft dark brown sugar
- 50g black treacle
- 4 eggs
- 3 (about 300g) apples, cored and grated
- 50g pecans, chopped
- 225g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1⁄2 tsp fine sea salt
ICING
- 150g butter, softened
- 300g icing sugar
- 2 tbsp black treacle, plus extra to drizzle
Method
- STEP 1
Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter a deep 24cm springform cake tin and line with baking paper. Tip the butter into a bowl with the sugar and treacle, and beat with an electric whisk until really light and fluffy. Crack in the eggs, one at a time, whisking well in between each addition.
- STEP 2
Fold in the grated apple, pecans, flour, bicarb, spices and salt, then scrape into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when poked into the middle. Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool fully.
- STEP 3
To make the icing, beat the butter with an electric whisk until really soft. Add the icing sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, whisking in between each addition until you have a light, fluffy icing. Whisk in the treacle until fully incorporated.
- STEP 4
Put the cooled cake on a cake plate or stand and spoon the treacle icing over the top, gently spreading it to the edges with the back of the spoon. Drizzle with a little extra black treacle, if you like. Cut into slices and serve.