Dorset Apple Cake … the verdict

This cake recipe does exactly what it says on the cake tin and then some.

I served it to friends as a dessert with clotted cream – silence is the best feedback in my home – they loved it.

Backtracking the Dorset Apple Cake I found in Lyme Regis was good but a little too sticky and may be too dense. Hand on heart this version was better - it had a delicious richness with just a hint of cinnamon, just right. Sticky, treacly from the muscovado sugar, not too Christmassy but you can't help but think it would be perfect as an alternative if you're not a lover of the heavier, classic Christmas Cake if you'd like an apple alternative this could be the cake for you.

The cooking apples don't taste like cooking apples, they are soft and taste like plump pieces of squidgy toffee apples.

More pluses :

this cake is good warm or cold – serve with vanilla

ice cream, clotted cream, custard or a combination of all

three

it keeps well. I made it on a Friday, wrapped in foil – twice.

By Tuesday it was as good as Friday – just that there were

only two portions left!

In conclusion – I'm not a huge cake eater but I loved this. It's a perfect Autumn comfort blanket with a cuppa on a chilly afternoon.

Photos up next.

My pending tray …

For those who've been used to paperwork of any kind you'll know what I mean – in theory a pending tray holds the stuff that can wait, which you promptly then forget, it gets buried and then becomes urgent.

I have a cookery pending tray which is not as dramatic – it's the stuff I want to cook or ideas I have scribbled down as an outline that I want to develop when I have the time. Part of the contents of my pending tray are ideas and research I've brought back from holidays. One of my favourite holiday habits is to research food or local delicacies before arriving. I don't want to waste time or forget a thing – it's like a picture postcard but with food.

As I've already mentioned earlier this summer we had our first holiday in Dorset – you know because I've droned on and on about the Hive Beach Café. My Dorset research told me about Dorset Apple Cake. I love a mission or a treasure hunt and this sounded just the job - the sort of cake we like – not light and fluffy! It uses cooking apples so not overtly sweet. I'm on the case.

Some time later … it wasn't easy to find but eventually I bought a huge slice from a bakery in the centre of Lyme Regis. It was as described, dark, moist and delicious.

Dorset is a large County and has its fair share of celebrity chefs and their restaurants – I think I prefer researching cake.

Top of the heap in the pending tray!