A fabulous autumnal apple and thyme cake to celebrate apple season. The texture is smooth and velvety and the flavour is sweet, tart, subtly spicy and very slightly herby. Perfect with a cup of tea after a long walk.
Peel, core and roughly chop the apples. Do this as quickly as possible so that the apples don't have time to oxidise and turn brown.
3 cooking apples
Place in a pan small pan. Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon over the top then add the butter. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for a five minutes or so until soft. Take off the heat and allow to cool.
25 g golden caster sugar, 25 g unsalted butter, ½ tsp ground cinnamon
Cake
Set the oven to 160℃ (140℃ fan, 320℉, Gas 3).
Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs and chop if they're particularly large.
3 sprigs fresh thyme
Extract the seeds from the cardamom pods, if using. Grind them to a powder with a pestle and mortar.
3 cardamom pods
In a large bowl, cream the butter together with the sugars, thyme leaves and cardamom, if using. A wooden spoon is best for this, although you can use an electric mixer if you prefer. Keep going until the mixture is pale in colour and fluffy in texture.
125 g unsalted butter, 125 g golden caster sugar, 100 g light muscovado sugar
Beat in the eggs, one by one.
3 large eggs
Sift in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and stir until just combined.
Scrape the batter into a deep lined 20cm cake tin and bake for 50 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. If the top looks like it's getting too brown, cover with a sheet of parchment or brown paper
Allowed to cool in the tin for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Optional Sugar Coating
Mix the icing sugar and cinnamon together, then dust over the top of the cooled cake.
1 tsp icing sugar, ⅛ tsp ground cinnamon
Notes
If you can get it, lemon thyme works particularly well in this cake.You’ll find additional tips and info about this recipe in the main body of the post.Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They’re approximate and will depend on exact ingredients used.