Apple Cake - Sans Gluten..

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about some recent successes with gluten-free baking, inspired by my friend and fellow-blogger, Jean .

Here is one of the recipes I promised in that post. It's an adaptation of the Somerset Apple Cake Jean baked for us once. The adaptation came about because I hadn't read the recipe properly and I didn't separate the eggs as I should have done.... so it was guess work from then on. Fortunately the result was very good, so here it is:

Gluten-free Apple Cake

You will need:

• 125g butter
• 125g sugar
• 125g Gluten-free SR flour (or ordinary SR flour if gluten's not a problem!)
• half tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 75g ground almonds
• 1tsp almond essence
• 2 eating apples - 1thinly sliced and one chunked
• Sugar and lemon juice to sprinkle over the apples
• A little milk

What to do:

• Set the oven to 180C, Gas 4
• Line an 8" tin with baking parchment.
• Thinly slice one of the apples and cut the other into chunks. (You can leave the skin on if you wish).
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
• Gradually add the flour, baking powder and ground almonds alternately with the beaten eggs and almond extract. 
• Mix thoroughly, adding enough milk to give a soft dropping consistency.
• Drain any lemon juice off the apple chunks and fold them into the mixture.
• Carefully spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, smoothing the surface with the back of a spoon.
• Drain the apple slices and arrange these on top of the cake mixture, sprinkling them lightly with a little sugar.
• Bake in the centre of the oven for approximately 40 minutes or until the cake is golden and beginning to come away from the sides of the tin.
• Allow to cool and it's ready to serve!

Variation:

If preferred you can divide the mixture into bun cases and top each with a slice of apple.

These will only need about 25 - 30 mins in the oven.

Hope you enjoy them... we certainly did!