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.