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Mary Berry Apple Cake

A moist almond sponge baked around a thick hidden layer of sharp cooking apples, finished with crisp toasted flaked almonds. The batter is mixed all in one bowl, and the cake is best served warm.
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings: 8
Course: baking
Cuisine: British
Calories: 400
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

For the Sponge
  • 225 g self-raising flour
  • 1 level tsp baking powder levelled off with a knife rather than heaped
  • 225 g caster sugar called superfine sugar in the US
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ tsp almond extract
  • 150 g butter melted, cooled slightly before mixing
For the Apple Layer and Almond Top
  • 250 g cooking apples peeled and cored, such as Bramley
  • 25 g flaked almonds

Method
 

  1. Get the oven and tin ready. Heat the oven to 160C (fan 140C, gas 3). Lightly grease a deep 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin.
  2. Make the all-in-one batter. Put the flour, baking powder, caster sugar, eggs, almond extract and melted butter into a mixing bowl. Mix until everything is blended, then beat for one minute. The batter will be thick and smooth, with no pockets of dry flour.
  3. Lay down the base. Spread half of the batter over the bottom of the prepared tin, pushing it out to the edges in an even layer.
  4. Add the apples. Cut the apples into thick slices and arrange them over the batter, heaping most of them in the centre. This stops the fruit from breaking through the sides once the batter spreads.
  5. Cover with the rest of the batter. With two dessert spoons, drop the remaining batter over the apples in rough spoonfuls. Focus on covering the centre well. It will look uneven, but the batter spreads out as it bakes.
  6. Scatter the almonds. Sprinkle the flaked almonds evenly over the top of the cake.
  7. Bake low and slow. Bake in the preheated oven for 1¼ to 1½ hours. It’s ready when the top is golden and the cake has begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin.

Notes

AGA Instructions

An AGA bake works in two stages: a short burst in the roasting oven to set and colour the cake, followed by a gentle finish in the simmering oven.
  1. Put the grid shelf on the floor of the roasting oven and slide the cold plain shelf onto the second set of runners. Bake the cake for about 20 minutes, or until it’s pale golden brown, keeping a close eye on it.
  2. Move the plain shelf to the middle of the simmering oven. It will be extremely hot, so use thick oven gloves.
  3. Carefully lift the cake onto the plain shelf and bake for a further 30-40 minutes, until a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean.