Apple Cake with apples from the apple tree

It's that time of year again...time to find any apples on the apple tree that haven't been too badly eaten by insects. I tend to cut off the good bits to use in recipes and the bad bits go into the compost bin.  

I decided to make apple cake. I've made this Mary Berry apple cake recipe before and it's always turned out well (as most Mary Berry recipes seem to do). I seem to recall that in the past I've even added cinnamon and raisins into the mix to make it resemble the flavours we enjoyed in the apple pies we had in Amsterdam.

I forgot to add those extras in this time though so we sprinkled some cinnamon on top of it afterwards. 

I've tweaked the recipe because I needed to make a double batch to use up the apples I had picked. I also reduced the amount of butter slightly, adding a little greek yogurt in it's place and reduced the amount of caster sugar slightly too because most I've found that you can get away with slightly less sugar in most cake recipes. 

This makes enough for 2 cakes. I used a 9inch (24cm) loose bottomed cake tin and an 8inch (20cm) loose bottomed cake tin. 

Ingredients: 

500g fresh apple - sliced

250g melted butter

2 tsp baking powder

50g flaked almonds

450g self-raising flour

400g caster sugar

4 large eggs

50g plain greek yogurt

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 140C (fan). Grease and line the two baking tins. Ensure the apples are washed and sliced ready to use and the butter is melted on a low heat in a pan. Remove the butter from the heat and allow to cool slightly. 

2. In a stand mixer, mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar. Then add the eggs and the yogurt. Slowly pour in the melted butter whilst the beater is still turning until it is all combined. 

3. If using added cinnamon or mixed spice, I would have added a teaspoon in at this point and mixed it in. 

4. Pour half of the mixture into the cake tins. So each cake tin will have around a quarter of the entire batch. You will need to save half of the whole batch to cover the apples with shortly.

5. Place the apples onto the cake batter. Don't worry about piling up several layers of apples. I just try not to let them go too close to the sides of the cake tin. If I was using sultanas or raisins I would add them amongst the apples at this point. 

6. Cover the apples with the rest of the batter trying to cover them as well as possible. It always feels like there is not enough batter left but it does usually turn out OK in the end even if they are not fully covered. 

7. Bake in the oven at 140C (fan) for 1 hour. Then check with a skewer. It may need an extra 15-30 minutes so check again after a further 15 minutes if it is not ready.  

The original recipe can be found here. This is my own adaptation so that I can remember what I did! Next time, I might try reducing the sugar and butter further and increasing the amount of yogurt. 

EDIT: I did try the recipe with less sugar and butter and more yogurt and it worked! Had a slightly "wetter" texture when cooked but that could have just been the apples bunched up more closely together and the batter seemed thicker so harder to spread but essentially it worked. So I used 200g butter, 300g sugar and 100g yogurt in place of the amounts given above. 

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Persian cooking: Fesen joon recipe

One of my biggest regrets is never learning to cook from my mum before it was too late. In her friendship group, she openly admitted that she wasn't the best cook when it came to Persian food but having tried to cook Persian food myself, I've realised that it isn't as easy at she made it look and that she was actually a great cook (memories of my zooloobiah disaster come flooding back as I type this!!!) 

In my opinion, Persian cuisine is one of the tastiest in the world and also hasn't yet had it's moment as it doesn't seem to have been widely discovered in the way other world cuisines have. 

Our nearest Persian restaurants are in London, for example, and we don't have any nearer to us sadly. 

I did however come across something the other day that I got very excited about - Nationwide delivery of frozen Persian meals from Modern Persian Kitchen. In fact, I placed an order as soon as I discovered it. We've gone for the Family Selection chef's pack. Next time it will definitely be the veggie option so that I can enjoy more of it. This time I was thinking of my family and what they would all enjoy the most. 

In the meantime, I started to crave Persian food. Although I never did learn to cook from my mum, one of her close friends gave me a Persian recipe book - It was her own treasured beloved copy - and to this day remains one of the kindest things someone has done for me. My dear auntie has also taught me some dishes when she has visited a couple of times in the past couple of decades and we miss her dearly living so far around the globe the rest of the time. And with the wonders of the internet, I'm always excited to come across Persian recipes.  

Now there are a few more unusual ingredients that you need for this recipe - but these days most ethnic stores or Amazon will sell these ingredients. Even supermarkets sometimes have some of these items. I'd say the key ingredient that you need that you may not ordinarily have at home is pomegranate molasses. Dried barberries and saffron for the rice also help complete the dish although it would be fine to serve with plain rice instead.

I found a recipe on Turmeric & Saffron that I used as a starting point for this. I love the idea of adding an apple - I've never done that before. Although I didn't add any sugar as I love the tangy sourness of the pomegranate molasses and the barberries. 

I've made my version meat-free using Meatless Farm mince as I usually keep a pack of that in my fridge. It has a longer shelf-life than meat and I use it in all sorts of recipes!  

Ingredients:

1 onion - diced

1 pack Meatless Farm mince

1 cup pomegranate molasses

1 apple - chopped

2 cups walnuts (finely ground)

A little oil

Half tsp turmeric 

Salt and pepper 

 

For the rice:

2-3 cups rice

2 carrots - grated

Handful of dried barbecues

Butter

Saffron, rose petals, ground cardamom 

 

Parsley to garnish 

 

Method:

1. Prepare the meatballs by adding salt, pepper and turmeric to the Meatless Farm mince and rolling into balls. 

 

2. Fry the onion in a little oil, then add the meatballs, gently stirring until browned. 

 

3. In the meantime, cook the rice according to pack instructions. My go-to way of cooking rice is wash, cover with water (a few centimetres above the level of rice), and pop in the microwave for 20-25 minutes (white rice) or around 40 minutes for brown rice.

 

4. Remove the meatballs and fried onions from the frying pan. Then use the same pan to dry fry the ground walnuts. They need to be finely ground. Keep stirring and keep a very close eye on it as they can burn easily. Once the walnuts have darkened (but not burned), add the pomegranate molasses and 2 cups of water. Add the meatballs/onions and apple and leave to simmer on a low heat. 

 

5. In a separate pan, fry the grated carrot and barberries in a little butter. 

 

6. Add the saffron to a small amount of boiling water. I used the contents of a saffron/rose/ground cardamom teabag but you can just use saffron if you wish. This is then stirred into the rice.

 

7. Serve the fesen joon with the rice and garnish with fresh parsley if you wish.  

 

 

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Strawberry cookies?

We set out to make strawberry cookies, but ended up with something that was a cross between a cookie and a rock cake. Tasted biscuity-cookie-like enough but looked more like a rock cake. Either way, it tasted good.

Ingredients:

150g chopped fresh strawberries 

100g caster sugar

250g plain flour 

50g milk chocolate (chopped into chunks)

Half a tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

110g butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and line a baking tray.

2. Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla and egg (I used my stand mixer, scraping around the sides as needed).

3. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

4. Pour the bowl of flour into the creamed butter and fold together until combined.

5. Add the chopped strawberries and chocolate chunks and fold until incorporated. 

6. Roll into balls and place on the baking tray. You could probably press down to flatten them slightly. I didn't as I wasn't sure how much they would spread when cooking. 

7. Bake for 15-20 minutes until beginning to turn a golden colour.

Remove from oven and leave to cool. 

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