I did say I was going to bake a cake, and here it is. What the Devon connection is, I have no idea. My recipe is a handwritten copy of the handwritten one in the notebook my mother started in the late 1960s, so I have no hesitation about sharing it (although I apologise for the purely imperial measurements - I am reluctant to give conversions without testing them).
4 ounces self-raising flour, or 4 ounces plain and 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder (I went through a phase recently of not buying self-raising, so all my favourite cake recipes have my tried and tested plain flour conversions pencilled next to them. I did use self-raising today though)
2 ounces caster sugar
2 ounces softened butter (it says margarine in the original but these days I always read butter for margarine)
1 medium-to-large egg (I grew up with chickens and can't quite get used to buying eggs in a specific size. The box says large but compared to some of the monsters we used to get it looks tiddly)
1 tablespoon milk (preferably not skimmed, but semi-skimmed should work if it's what you have)
1 large cooking apple, or 2 to 3 dessert apples (I used 3 smallish Cox's today), peeled, cored and cut into chunks
Granulated sugar for sprinkling
Heat oven to Gas Mark 5/190 C (Aga owners are on their own here, I'm afraid) and line a 7" round baking tin. Beat together all the ingredients except the apple, then stir the apple into the batter, transfer to the tin, sprinkle with granulated sugar and bake for around 30 minutes, or until the nearest 1.5mm knitting needle/strand of uncooked spaghetti/posh cake tester comes out clean (it took me 40 minutes today. Life's like that). Pour glass of Thatcher's Single Varietal Cider (Coxs, of course) and enjoy.
1 comment:
Message from Mum - That recipe was written into my book by my Mother, and as far as I can remember, she got it from the newspaper which would have been The Western Morning News - so that is the most likely explanation for the Devon bit.
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