Halloween Treats : Toffee Apple Cake

When we were kids, my Mum used to make toffee apples every Halloween and the local kids would clamour at the door in the hope that one would be dropped into their plastic carrier bag (no orange trick or treat buckets or bags for life back then...). We, of course would be standing behind her waving our toffee apples & gloating because we had beautiful manners.  Not.  Actually Mum saw a recipe over the weekend for a baked toffee apple and was quite appalled "how the hell can you bake a toffee apple - that's ridiculous".  Closer inspection of recipe revealed that it was just a baked apple covered in toffee sauce.  Bold Nigella!

So, I'm making my own filling-friendly tribute to Mum's toffee apples and bringing it to FoodCamp at Savour Kilkenny on Friday as part of my picnic contribution (I'm also bringing my Sausage Rolls and some Chocolate Spiced Cookies - I hope they're hungry!).  This looks really impressive but it's surprisingly easy to make.

Toffee Apple Cake

250g Butter (very soft)
225g Golden Caster Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 medium Apples, peeled, cored & chopped
4 tbsp Dulce de Leche
200g Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
50g Ground Almonds
2 medium Apples, quartered, cored & thinly sliced

Preheat your oven to 180c/Gas Mark 4.  Line an 8-inch square cake tin with baking paper.

Cream the butter & sugar together until pale & fluffy.

Add the eggs, one by one, beating between each egg.

Mix in the vanilla extract, chopped peeled apple and 2 tbsp of the Dulce de Leche (save the rest until later).

Now sift in the flour and baking powder, mix well and fold in the ground almonds.

Pour the mixture into the lined cake tin and top with the sliced apples.  Poke them into the cake mix at an angle so they overlap slightly.  Bake for 60 minutes until dark gold in colour (check with a skewer if necessary).

Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing & transferring to a wire cooling rack.  Pour over the remaining Dulce de Leche and allow the cake to cool completely before cutting and serving.