Hungarian spiced apple cake
In my childhood we had several apple trees in our garden, so at harvest we made lots of bottles of preserved compote, sauce and juice for the winter. The rest we used for baking – pies, strudel and cakes. My mum made this Hungarian spiced apple cake every year. I’ve changed the original recipe a bit – it didn’t have lemon, but I find this version a bit more zesty. Also, I make it now with oat milk, so it’s dairy-free. Vanilla sugar and the ginger-bread spice mixture are available in most Eastern/Middle-European shops, the latter is very similar to ground mixed spice ( you can easily make vanilla sugar yourself, or substitute it with 1 tsp vanilla essence mixed with 1 Tbsp caster sugar). I serve the cake with vanilla custard or just dust it with icing sugar mixed with a pinch cinnamon. Perfect treat on cold days with a mug of tea, coffee or mulled wine!
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line the bottom of a spring clip cake tin with baking paper.
- Peel, core and thinly slice the apples. Put them in a bowl, squeeze over the lemon juice, add the zest and vanilla sugar. Set aside.
- Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the spices and combine.
- In another bowl whisk eggs with the sugar until pale, then add the oil and milk.
- Pour the wet ingredient into the dry ones and stir gently until well combined and lump-free.
- Gently fold in the apple pieces (including the lemon juice) and combine.
- Transfer the mixture into the cake tin, scatter a spoonful of extra sugar on the top.
- Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about an hour, until golden.
- Insert a skewer in the middle – if it comes out clean, the cake is done.
- Turn off the oven, leave the door open slightly and let the cool down gradually in the oven.
- After ten minutes take the tin out of the oven, let it cool for another ten minutes before removing the cake from it.
- Slice and serve.