Cake for Mum

As we all know, Sunday was Mothers' Day: another opportunity to make an Edmonds recipe. This time I selected continental apple cake (p47), as a dish likely to appeal to my Mum.

On Saturday afternoon, I put flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs and melted butter into my mixer bowl. While that lot was mixing up, I sliced some Granny Smiths (utilising a food processor for speed, but you could do it by hand) and combined the apple slices with sultanas, sugar, cinnamon and almond essence.


It's quite a big cake, made in a 25cm round tin. I spooned two thirds of the cake mixture into the prepared tin, and spread the apple mixture evenly on top, followed by the remainder of the cake mixture. It's really quite quick to put together, as long as you're prepared to do a few dishes afterwards!


After 35 minutes in the oven, my cake seemed to be pretty much cooked. I was a little worried about the centre, which was slightly softer than the rest of the cake, but it still sprang back when I gave it a poke, so I figured it'd be ok.


I allowed the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before taking it out to cool on a rack. When the cake was cool, I positioned it nicely on my cake pedestal, wrapped it up and packed it carefully into the car.


At 6.30am on Sunday morning, I was on the road to Timaru. I knew Mum and Dad were going out for the day, so if I wanted to surprise them, it had to be early. They sure were surprised - in fact, they thought I was a total nutter for driving two hours just to spend an hour or so with Mum on Mother's day, before heading back to Chch. It was worth it though!


As for the cake, it was sweet, moist and tasty - but, as I'd feared, soggy in the middle. a few more minutes in the oven may have fixed this, but I'd have run the risk of drying out the outer edge. Mum suggests a ring tin would solve this problem - you can't have a soggy centre when there isn't one!


With the combination of apple, cinnamon and almond in this cake, it's easy to see why it was given the description 'continental'. This is a title it no longer has, by the way - in the newest edition, this cake is called 'spicy apple cake'. Whether this is because there's some negative connotation to the word 'continental' or whether Edmonds merely think their readers won't understand words of four syllables, I'm not sure.

What I am sure of is that this cake is ideal for those who enjoy a moist, apple based cake - especially if you're into that spicy, almondy flavour like I am. And if it comes out a little soggy: well, just heat it up and serve it with a bit of ice cream or custard. Yum.