One of my favourite jobs to help with in the garden is pruning the fruit trees - and that's what we did this weekend.
Yesterday we picked the last of the Lady Williams apples, stripped the remaining apple tree leaves, and pruned the branches ready for the new fruiting season.
And today, after we juiced the apples, I made Apple Butter Cake. Yum!
Apple Butter Cake
185g butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cloudy apple juice
1 Red Delicious apple (I used Pink Lady)
1 tablespoon demerara sugar (I used brown sugar)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fanforced). Grease and line a 20cm springform pan.
Beat butter, vanilla and caster sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Gently stir through flours and apple juice in two batches until combined. Spread the mixture into cake pan.
Cut apple into quarters and remove core. Slice into very thin strips. Place apple slices in two circles around cake so that they overlap each other. Make sure that the centre is well covered. Sprinkle apples with combined demerara sugar and cinnamon.
Bake in oven for about 1 hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning out.
Serves 8
( Recipe from P41, The Weekend Australian Magazine July 23-24 2005)
Did you have a beautiful weekend?
Sam xx
