It's Not Mom's It's Mine!

We have a huge apple tree in out garden which produces many many more apples than we can ever eat/cook with/reach to pick. Most of them went to waste last year as we can't reach to pick any higher than the bottom few branches. The birds and the wasps also make short work of a lot of them while they're still on the tree, so we've never managed to get to too many of them.

We've done better this year than we did the last though and there's a litre of Apple and Sultana Vodka waiting in a cool dark cupboard, which should be ready to taste in about three weeks and one very nice apple cake has been cooked and eaten.



The Perfect Apple Cake Recipe.

8oz of cooking apples (although eating apples from your very own tree work just as well),8oz of sultanas,1/4 pint of milk,6oz of soft brown sugar,12oz of self raising flour,2tsp mixed spice (or just cinnamon is nice),6oz butter,1 medium egg,1oz demerara sugar.

Peel, core and chop the apples into bite sized chunks.

Mix the apples, sultanas and milk together and put to one side.

Cream the butter and the soft brown sugar together, mix in the egg.

Sieve the flour and the spice together into the butter and sugar mixture and mix well.

Add the apples, sultanas and milk to the butter and flour mixture and give it a good stir.

Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top before cooking.

Put it in an 8" cake tin and cook in the oven (electric 160) for about 2 hours until cooked through. It may take a bit longer so towards the end of the cooking time out a knife or skewer in the centre and if it comes out clean it's cooked.

Cool and enjoy.