Skip to main content

Apple and Cranberry loaf


After a bit of a horrible day off - me with the grumps, an aunt downstairs with a very loud voice, I finally got round to baking. Bring it on! I used up the apples, overdosing the cake with them since I'm sure four granny smiths does not equal 2 cups (see the massive chunks in the picture). But it all turned out well. I had the apple corer/slicer thing which I bought for a quid, and aside from drenching my top in apple juice, it did the job fine. I also managed to use a cup of cranberries, leaving another cup to use up tomorrow I guess, but since it's been sitting in my freezer since Christmas it's time.

My verdict on this cake? I love it. The apples are slightly too bland, probably because they've sat around for awhile and because the chunks are so big, but the cranberries work a treat alongside. Plus it would seem this cake is ridiculously healthy. No butter, just 2 tbsp of oil and one egg. It lacks some punch though, so I think next time I'll add some more spice or lemon peel just to give it a boost. As it was I put a tsp of mixed spice rather than the original cinnamon requested, but other than giving it a lovely colour and smell, it doesn't offer much in the way of warmth or depth.

It does look a bit of a stunner though doesn't it? Mother dearest commented I should have put those peeled almonds round the edge like in dundee cake. What you don't get in dundee cake (I suspect at least, because I never made it myself) is the sheer lumpiness of this cake pre-bake. I wish I took pictures, but it went in as a pile of apples coated in brown batter. It is pretty amazing how it expands and becomes a cake though.

Picture of the sliced wedge just to show how chunky the apples were. It was ever so slightly raw in the top of the dome in the middle, but we ate it anyway. Not entirely convinced skewer trick works given the amount of fruit in the mix.

Since this was a recipe worth repeating, especially how healthy it felt. Please see below.

Apple and Cranberry loaf

Ingredients:
2 cups peeled, chopped apple
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp oil
1 egg
1 1/2 cup plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp mixed spice
1 cup cranberries (I used frozen dunked in water briefly)
(The original recipe calls for chopped walnuts but I chose not to sully my cakes with nuttier elements - feel free if you want = 1/2 cup chopped walnuts at the same time as the cranberries)

Method:
1. Apples, sugar, oil and egg - mix.
2. Add everything else bar the cranberries.
3. Mix well and then stir in the cranberries (wait till now otherwise you'll just have pink cake with lots of cranberry skins. Not a bad thing. Just pink.)
4. Place in a lightly greased pan. I used a deep round cake tin with a loose base. I'm not convinced not greasing it would have mattered, but will experiment with that next time.
5. Cook for 1 hour at Gas Mark 5 until skewer comes out clean.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rachel Allen's Chicken Pie

Some things should be noted. I'm not a major fan of Rachel Allen. She always seemed such a poor man's version of Nigella. Some trophy wife of a producer somewhere making a lady of leisure's living of cookery shows playing up the Irish accent in a cavernous show kitchen. Perhaps it was because all her helpful "tricks" had already been touted by others a long time ago - like getting the garlic smell out of your hands... But over the years she's kind of grown on me. The format is a little twee, the pink accessories want to make me barf, but she isn't the spawn of all things faux goddess anymore. (FYI I have no idea with regards to her personal life etc, but like my distaste for Ashley Judd, one wonders how she gets good films with little acting skill.) So here I was, tapping away on the internet last week whilst she was on tv, and there it was. A beast of a pie. It was so beautiful. Her job was done. Out I trotted to buy a huge pie dish (we don't own cera...
4 comments
Read more

Raspberry Cream Cheese Buns

What with my new cupcake books arriving from Amazon, one look at the Raspberry Cream Cheese buns on someone elses's site (made with blackcurrant there) and I had to make them. Knowing full well my family wouldn't touch them. Four of these babies were therefore made with big dollops of lemon curd instead, which made delightfully caramelly messes of the tin, but also on the buns, not that I get to touch those - I have eight buns to eat! The original recipe is from Buttercup Bakery book (New York) and one of these days I'll try the dried cherry one from Magnolias (since I own the book...) What you need to know about these is that the recipe is easy - as easy as muffins are, but they sink like heck given the amount of preserves you're putting in them. What they give back though, is something so moist and rich you just want to sink yourself into them. And since I've eaten two of them, I'm doing quite well! As you can see, massive craters. If you don't want that...
1 comment
Read more

Low carb diet plan

It's January. I've allowed my weight to grow UP with the Covid curve and somehow it still has not come down. Thanks to a large part to me using up a number of hot chocolate bomb "fails" just before Christmas I think. Wall of text alert - I don't plan on ever writing about this ever again. To be clear, I've never been a fan of carb-cutting. Cutting an entire food group seems wrong. Carbs, as we were taught at school, are cornerstones for growth. I felt like decking a "doctor" at an annual work health check when he told me to cut carbs as a way to get my weight down. The fact he then pushed a blog which was at its infancy at the time felt like a distinct conflict of interest. Anyway, I do absolutely agree I need to cut sugar, and I will never disagree that whole grains are better for you. It is also very, very effective dieting wise on me. We don't know why, I do know I have a lot of water weight which fluctuates a lot in the month and also it does...
Post a Comment
Read more