Calvados Apple Cake with Salted Caramel Mascarpone

Something we're a little bit fond of in the day job is cake.  We pretty much drop everything if there's the rattle of forks and the chance of something sweet to bring a bit of sunshine into our lives.  Doing the Bake Off in work is a great way for everybody to show off their baking talents (or blatantly cheat in some cases - you know who you are) and I have a great time being Queen Judge and very fairly evaluating everybody's entries.  You'd think that would absolve me from having to bake myself, wouldn't you?.

Not a chance.  Especially with my colleague Karen sitting across from me. If she hears the C word, there's an immediate yelp of "cake, cake, CAKE???" and she gets very excited.  When she heard I had bought some apples, I was instructed to go home and make a cake.  With the apples and maybe some salted caramel because she's fond of that too.  How could I resist such an order?  To turn it into a very grown up cake, I marinated the apples in some Calvados and made a mascarpone cream with the last of my salted caramel.  As I'm feeding a crowd, I made a large traybake cake and topped it with the salted caramel mascarpone,but if it was for a smaller crowd, I'd make two 8 inch cakes and sandwich them together with half of the mascarpone and use the rest to decorate the top, with a few swirls of salted caramel for added prettiness.

Calvados Apple Cake with Salted Caramel Mascarpone

2 medium Bramley Apples
40ml Calvados
350g Self Raising Flour
275g Caster Sugar
275g Butter, very soft
5 Eggs
45ml Milk

250g Mascarpone Cheese
3 tbsp Salted Caramel
1 tbsp Calvados

Peel, core and slice the apples into thin slices.  Place them into a lidded container and pour over the Calvados. Put the lid on and place in the fridge while you get on with the rest of the cake.

Preheat your oven to 150c / Gas Mark 2 and line two loose bottomed 8-inch round cake tins with baking paper.

Sift the flour into a large bowl before adding the sugar, butter, eggs and milk.  Mix gently until combined then beat really well for a minute until smooth.  I use a food mixer but a hand held whisk will do the job too, just a little bit more slowly.

Pour enough cake mixture into the bottom of each tin to cover the base then use half of the apples to make a layer of fruit before topping with the rest of the mixture and arranging the rest of the apples on top in a pretty pattern.

Bake for 45 minutes until cooked through and a skewer comes out clean.  Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

While the cake is baking, make the Salted Caramel Mascarpone. Whisk the cheese, caramel and Calvados together until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate until needed.

When cold, sandwich the cake together with half of the salted caramel mascarpone.  Spread the rest on top and drizzle with more salted caramel.

Enjoy!