This is a beautiful recipe from Dee Rettali’s book Baking with Fortitude. Sourdough cakes and bakes. Published by Bloomsbury.
I have a glut of apples from my garden which inspired me to make this cake. It’s a star. Moist, delicious and the fennel seeds add a special note of flavour that complements the apples. The recipe makes either one large 900g loaf or two smaller 450g loaves. Thank you to Imogen Hey for helping me photograph it.
You will need a 900g loaf tin, lined with baking parchment
Ingredients
2 large cooking apples, unpeeled cord and chopped into 2.5 cm chunks
290g unsalted butter, softened.
1 tablespoon Demerara sugar/ or other sugar of choice
200g molasses sugar
4 medium eggs
250g organic self raising white flour
50g sultanas
50g pecans, finally chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
100ml full fat milk.
Method
Preheat the oven to 220°C/ fan 200°C
Place the apple pieces in a baking dish, and dot with 115g of butter . You could use less butter than this if you wanted to reduce the fat content of the cake. Sprinkle over the demerara sugar. Roast the apples for 12 to 15 minutes until the apples give a little but still have their shape.
Reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/ fan 180°C
In a large bowl, cream together the remaining butter (175g) and molasses sugar using an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time with a teaspoon of flour to prevent cuddling, mixing between each addition.
Fold the remaining flour into the creamed butter using a metal spoon. Fold in the sultanas pecans, funnel seeds and cooked roast apples by hand. Finally add the milk and mix until just combined.
Pour the cake batter into the lined loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes or until it springs back to the touch. Leave the cake in the tin to cool. When stored in an airtight container in the fridge this loaf cake will keep for seven days.