I had a bunch of Granny Smith apples on hand and decided to use some of them in a Dorset Apple Traybake from BBC Good Food. The recipe looked so simple but I was intrigued by the huge number of five-star reviews.
The recipe uses the all-in-one mixing method, which means you literally dump all of the ingredients (softened butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, and baking powder) into a bowl and mix. I had to make a couple of substitutions. The recipe calls for golden caster sugar and I used regular white granulated sugar. And I don't keep self-raising flour on hand, so I used all-purpose and added extra baking powder (following this formula from Nigella Lawson, I added an extra two teaspoons of baking soda for each 150 grams of all-purpose flour). That meant I used two tablespoons of baking powder for the cake batter, which seemed like a crazy amount.
The batter was extremely thick, like American buttercream. I spread half of it into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan; laid on a layer of thinly-sliced apples that I had cut on a mandoline and tossed with lemon juice; and followed with another layer of cake batter and another layer of apples. I finished off the cake with a sprinkle of coarse sugar before putting it in the oven to bake.
The recipe says you should bake the cake until golden, but apples covered almost the entire top surface of my cake and they remained pale. My pale cake looked nothing like the recipe photo. This cake was tasty, and if I hadn't baked it myself, I would have sworn that there were almonds in it -- there was a phantom touch of almond flavor. Unlike many of the reviewers, I didn't think it was too sweet. I liked the generous amount of apples, but I have to say that I can't quite figure out why so many reviewers raved about this cake. It was good, but nothing to write home about. Then again, you can't beat the ease and simplicity of the recipe.
Recipe: "Dorset Apple Traybake" from BBC Good Food.
The recipe uses the all-in-one mixing method, which means you literally dump all of the ingredients (softened butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, and baking powder) into a bowl and mix. I had to make a couple of substitutions. The recipe calls for golden caster sugar and I used regular white granulated sugar. And I don't keep self-raising flour on hand, so I used all-purpose and added extra baking powder (following this formula from Nigella Lawson, I added an extra two teaspoons of baking soda for each 150 grams of all-purpose flour). That meant I used two tablespoons of baking powder for the cake batter, which seemed like a crazy amount.
The batter was extremely thick, like American buttercream. I spread half of it into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan; laid on a layer of thinly-sliced apples that I had cut on a mandoline and tossed with lemon juice; and followed with another layer of cake batter and another layer of apples. I finished off the cake with a sprinkle of coarse sugar before putting it in the oven to bake.
Recipe: "Dorset Apple Traybake" from BBC Good Food.
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