Ottolenghi Apple & Olive Oil Cake with Apologies

Crappest. 

Photographs. 

Ever.

Curse this winter light (or lack thereof) and my north facing window!
But I promise you that this cake is one of the moistest (sic) and most brilliant that I've tasted so far in my self-appointed role as Cake Tester To The Stars (Max Clifford, take note).

The original recipe, as found in Ottolenghi The Cookbook, gives the least helpful direction ever, as to the amount of apple to use.

3 Bramley Apples

Excuse me..? Out of all the apples in the entire world, which is the one which varies most in size?  I had my mind well and truly boggled when trying to select my apples in the greengrocer, trying to work out if I should go for apples the size of tennis balls, or apples the size of a baby's head.

If I hadn't thought to make a quick check online to see if anyone else had struggled with this, I'd have put 650 grams of apple into the mix.  Yotam clarifies on one of the discussion forums on the Ottolenghi website, that approximately 360 grams of apple is required.

Apple & Olive Oil Cake with Maple Icing (adapted from original to omit sultanas and to omit need to slice the finished cake in half)

As advised by Ottolenghi, this cake is definitely better if double-wrapped in cling film once cooled and left to mature for two to three days before icing.

Ingredients

280g plain flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
120ml olive oil
160g caster sugar
1/2 vanilla pod, or 1tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
360g Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped into 1cm dice
grated zest of 1 lemon
2 egg whites

Icing
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g light muscavado sugar
85ml maple syrup

220g cream cheese, at room temperature

• Grease two 20cm sandwich tins and line the bases with baking parchment.
• Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan forced/Gas Mark 3
• Sift the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and set aside.
• Whisk the olive oil, sugar and vanilla (preferably with an electric whisk) together, then gradually add the eggs. The mix should be smooth and thick at this stage.
• Stir in the apples and lemon zest and then lightly fold in the sifted dry ingredients.
• Whisk the egg whites until they have a soft meringue consistency. Carefully fold them into the cake batter in 2 additions, trying to lose as little air as possible.
• Pour the mixture evenly between the two tins, level with a spatula or palette.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a cake skewer comes out clean from the centre.
• Once cooked, allow the cakes to cool completely before icing.

 

• To make the icing, beat together the butter and maple syrup and sugar until light and airy. Beat in the cream cheese until totally smooth.

 

• Use the icing to the sandwich the cakes and smooth the remaining on top. You could finish the cake with some chopped, toasted pecans, or not.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.