This recipe is the famous Blue Ribbon one that has been around for ages. Soft cake, sweetly tangy apples and lightly spiced fruit crumble are the central figures in this cake and together they deliver a heavenly teacake or dessert cake. Served warm with whipped cream or as a tea slice, this cake goes down well at anytime of the day, breakfast included.
The original recipe uses canned sliced apples but in no time at all, you can quickly cook down some apples and have a wonderful tangy topping for this cake. Everyone has some apples lying around. Skin, core and quarter 3-4 apples and add to a small saucepan. Spritz over the juice of half a lemon and add 2 tablespoons of sugar and cook on medium heat for about 10-15 minutes till apples have softened but still hold their shape.
This is also a good way to use leftover apples and freeze once cooked. Doing this means you will always have a supply of cooked fruit for crumble desserts and cakes.
Ingredients for Cake
- 125 g butter
- 1/2 c caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 5 ml baking powder
- 1 c cake flour
- 2 – 3 TB of milk
Method to make Cake
- Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius.
- Grease and line the bottom of a 20 cm round springform pan.
- Cream butter and sugar till light and creamy.
- Add eggs one at a time and beat well.
- Sift cake four and baking powder and fold into creamed mixture. Don’t over-beat the mixture. Stop after a few turns of the spatula as the goal is to mix the dry ingredients till combined onto the creamed mixture.
- Add 2 – 3 tablespoons of milk to lighten the mixture if it is too thick. The cake batter must be of thickly pouring consistency.
- Turn cake batter into prepared pan and level off.
- Prepare crumble topping.
Crumble Topping
- 1 can (385 g) tinned and sliced pie apples or 3-4 apples cooked down.
- 100 ml cake flour
- 50 g softened butter
- 50 ml sugar
- 5 ml ground cinnamon or mixed spice
- 1/2 c sultanas/fruit cake mix
- Place pie apples in a single layer over the surface of the cake. If the apples are very moist, lightly pat down with kitchen paper. This way the cake doesn’t become soggy.
- Rub butter into flour till the mixture resembles large breadcrumbs.
- Add cinnamon, sugar and fruit and lightly mix.
- Lightly sprinkle the crumble mixture over the apples.
- Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes.
- Leave in pan for a few minutes to cool before springing cake from pan.
