Brass' Bramble & Apple Cake
A season of mellow fruitfulness. Autumn hedgerows have a bountiful supply of berries which can be picked and frozen to eat any time of the year. We love foraging and baking with freshly ripened fruits. Blackberries (brambles) from our hedgerows and apples from the orchard make a fantastic cake for autumn and winter. We wanted to make this as Cumbrian as we could, so have used organic butter from The Torpenhow Cheese Company, Carr's plain flour, North Lakes milk, our own eggs and fruit from our hedgerows and orchard. This is a recipe we have adapted over time, it is tried, tested and very tasty. We like to serve it with homemade custard, or Abbot Lodge Jersey Ice Cream – keeping food miles as local as we can.
Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 250 g Carrs plain flour
- 165 g unsalted butter
- 150 g castor sugar
- 60 g demerara
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 3 large free range eggs beaten
- 120 ml milk full fat or semi-skimmed
- 1 small sweet eating apple, such as Cox’s, peeled and diced
- 1 orange finely grated zest (optional)
- 1 unwaxed lemon finely grated zest
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 250 g blackberries
- 2 rounded tbsp demerara sugar for top
Instructions
- Line a 23-cm springform cake tin that is at least 6 cm deep with a cake tin liner or non-stick baking paper.
- Check through the blackberries and brush off any dirt with a piece of kitchen towel (washing them will add water to the mix) and put to one side. If frozen, make sure excess liquid is removed.
- Melt the butter and set aside.
- Keep back 2 tablespoons of your demerara sugar and then place the remaining castor and demerara sugars, eggs, orange zest and vanilla in a bowl. Whisk until pale and fluffy.
- Sift in the flour and baking powder, and thoroughly mix before pouring the melted butter and milk into the mix and whisk again.
- Sprinkle a handful of the blackberries into the bottom of the prepared tin. Pour about half of the cake mix over the top of the blackberries.
- Sprinkle half the apple and half of the remaining blackberries over the cake mix, then add the remaining cake mix.
- Sprinkle the remaining blackberries and apple over the top then finish by sprinkling over the 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar.
- Put the cake tin on a baking sheet (to catch spillages) and bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour, or until the cake is golden and crisp on top and a skewer comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool before taking out of the tin.
- Serve with homemade custard or Abbott Lodge Jersey Ice Cream
Notes
As an alternative why not add a crumble topping: 25g plain flour 25g porridge oats, 25g butter, 25g demerara sugar.