Apple & Yoghurt Cake

This is a beautifully simple, unpretentious gem of a cake. It takes minutes to throw together, and is equally enjoyable plain with an afternoon cuppa, or tarted up for dessert with cream, fresh fruit, stewed fruit compote, or a creamy mascarpone frosting.

I adapted this recipe from a Rhubarb and Yoghurt cake by my chef friend Anna (www.culinaryanthropologist.org).

I love a cake recipe that only requires one mixing bowl and a wooden spoon – and this is one of those!

Takes: 10 minutes to make, plus 1 hour to bake.

Makes: A generous cake which easily serves 10

Storage/Serving: This is a nice moist cake which keeps well for 3 days in an airtight container. Try serving it with cream, or greek yoghurt. Or an apple and berry compote. Or even make a mascarpone frosting to spread on top.

Ingredients

• 125g salted butter (plus extra for greasing the tin)
• 125g plain natural or greek yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla essence
• 2 large eggs
• 300g eating apples (ideally quite tart ones) – this is 4-5 medium apples
• 250g caster sugar
• 300g self-raising flour

Method:

• Prepare a round, loose bottomed 9”/20cm cake tin by lining the bottom with baking paper and greasing the sides (or if you don’t have one of those, you can make it in a square brownie tin). Preheat your oven to 160 degrees C, or Gas mark 4.
• There’s no need to peel the apples, but wash them and remove the cores, then chop them into small pieces (the size of half a grape). Leave the apple pieces aside.
• Melt 125grams of butter (if you have a microwave, and a good-sized microwave –proof mixing bowl, then your washing up will be minimal, as you melt the butter in the bowl and then just add everything else to the same bowl.
• Leave the butter to cool for a couple of minutes, then add the other ingredients in the order that they are listed, mixing well with a wooden spoon after each ingredient, until you get to the flour.
• Add the flour last, and stir it in gently, just enough to combine. Once there are no visible streaks of flour, stop mixing!
• Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin, and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until it is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.
• Leave it to cool for at least 20 minutes in the tin, before turning out onto a plate. Dust with icing sugar and enjoy warm or cold!

Note: This recipe SHOULD take 50-60 minutes to bake. But I'm currently wrestling with 'The Beast'..... AKA the oven we inherited with our new house. The previous owner was a chef. And 20 years ago The Beast was a top of the range professional oven. Now, however it's a temperamental piece of c£@p which gets hotter on the outside than the inside, has toddler-height doors easily opened by inquisitive small people, and a lethal wall of flame at the back which ensures consistently uneven bakes! So it took an hour and a half to bake.......but you hopefully have a more reliable oven!