A very optimistic cake

Jan 12, 2021

Hiya!

Happy new year (it’s not too late to say it still, right?) I’m personally a lover of making new year's resolutions, even though I'm not the best at seeing them through. In fact, by the time March comes around I've usually already forgotten all about them!

So this year, instead of making new year's resolutions, I figured I'd borrow from my Chinese roots and instead make something which represents my wishes for the year ahead. We do this a lot during major occasions such as the Lunar New Year, where (almost) every food item has symbolism and meaning attached to it. They carry all our best intentions for the next 12 months and as you feed your loved ones with your cooking, you're also sort of "feeding" them with all of your best hopes for their future.

In that spirit, here is my Cinnamon and Dark Rum-Spiced Apple Cake.

**A scattering of icing sugar to compensate for the lack of snow in London.**

It is my hope that this treat paves the year ahead with love and that in spite of everything (Lockdown 3.0, we see you) we're still able to make the sweetest of memories. This cake is filled with orange zest to give your life a little bit of a zing whenever things get a bit dull, and the apples representing knowledge and wisdom are to light your path ahead.

Slight Joy Luck Club vibes aside, I honestly just love this cake because it’s got such a fab optimistic vibe to it. The cinnamon and orange zest gives it a fragrant, wintry familiarity that makes me think of crackling fireplaces and warm cosy blankets, while the apples are bright and sweet, yet ever-so-slightly tangy and refreshing. The cake is comfortingly soft and moist, but the baked sugar-lined edges give you an occasional crunchy surprise to excite the senses over and over again.

I know it sounds a little bit like I've taken crazy pills, but trust me – make this cake and you'll see what I mean. Its optimism is simply undeniable!

By the way, this recipe is also a great base for most fresh fruit cakes you might want to make. Fancy a pear cake? Just swap out the apples directly. Or take the fruit out completely and just make it a vanilla cake with lemon zest, swapping out the rum for whole milk. Keep it simple or make it fancy – as long as you stick to the base recipe, you should be good to go.

Cinnamon and Dark Rum-Spiced Apple Cake

Perfect for elevensies or afternoon tea, or as a simple, light post-dinner treat.
Serves: 8
Prep time: 1 hour
Bake time: 50 minutes

125g unsalted butter, plus extra to line the baking tin. Make sure your butter is soft and at room temperature.
125g brown sugar + 1.5 extra tbsp for topping the cake (I used muscovado because of its deep, almost-fruity flavour, but feel free to use whatever you have)
2 large eggs
125g plain / all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp fine salt
50g cashews (I find cashews a bit more neutral-tasting but feel free to use ground almonds if you'd prefer)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp granulated sugar to line the buttered 8-inch baking tin
1 medium-sized orange
80ml dark / spiced rum (or swap this out for milk if you’re avoiding alcohol)
2 Braeburn apples (Pink Lady works well too, we just want something firm and sweet)
1 tbsp icing sugar (optional) for dusting before serving

Okay cool, now:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C or 160° C Fan.

2. Butter the base and sides of an 8-inch cake tin – line the base with parchment paper if it doesn’t pop out of the sides like mine does.

Sugar-line the sides by tilting the tin on its side over the sink, pouring in 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar, and then rotating the tin clockwise like a hamster-less wheel so the sugar cascades and coats the sides. This helps give the outside of your cake a cheeky crunch to contrast against the soft, moist (yes, I said moist!) cake.

3. Get your dry ingredients ready by giving the 50g of cashews a quick blitz in the food processor (or place them in a sandwich bag and pound them with a bottle of wine) until you get a fairly fine cashew sand.

**This recipe was not sponsored by Ninja, BUT if it was…**

Sift 125g all-purpose flour, half a teaspoon of fine salt, 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and fold together with the ground cashews. Zest 1 orange and set it aside in a separate bowl so the moisture doesn’t cause the flour to clump. Then juice the orange in a separate bowl to produce approx. 40ml of orange juice.

4. Start on your batter by creaming 125g unsalted, room temperature butter and 125g brown muscovado sugar together with a hand mixer (I've done this with a balloon whisk before as well, although it does require a bit of elbow grease or a strong flatmate!) for a few minutes till it becomes a pale, brownish-yellow.

Beat in 1 egg to loosen the mixture up initially, and once it starts clumping together again, add the second egg and continue beating for another 3 minutes until it resembles glossy, creamy cake frosting

Gently fold in your dry ingredients and the orange zest with a silicone or rubber spatula – it won't completely incorporate (and might even look a bit flour-y) at this point, but it should feel super light, fluffy and pillowy.

Pour in 80ml of dark rum, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and the juice of your zested orange (approx. 40ml) and gently fold a few more times until incorporated – don’t worry if it looks a bit lumpy because of the orange zest.

5. Pour the batter into the cake tin and gently level it out with your spatula.

Peel, core and slice your 2 apples into 1cm-thick wedges and line the edges of your cake tin with them, overlapping the slices as you go. Push them into the batter very slightly as you lay each apple slice down.

Top the mixture with 1.5 tablespoons of brown muscovado sugar and bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until a cake tester emerges from the centre clean. Check it after 30 minutes to see if it's getting too brown – if it is, tent it loosely with some foil before continuing to bake.

**I didn’t need to tent mine with foil but yours might since all ovens are slightly different from each other.**

6. Let the cake cool for 45 minutes to an hour before removing from the tin and serving with a nice cuppa alongside it. Optionally, gently sift 1 tablespoon of icing sugar over the top before slicing and serving if you wanna be fancy. 💁

**Honestly, she’s great with or without a final dusting of icing sugar.**

So there you go, a sweet treat to toast a sweet year ahead. This is my fave base cake recipe, so let your imagination go wild and try playing around with different fruits, flavourings, liquids, white instead of brown sugar, elderflower cordial instead of rum (maybe reduce the weight of sugar as well)… honestly, go crazy!

As always, I hope you love this recipe as much as I do, and when you make this recipe, please don’t forget to leave a comment here or tag me @forksandchopstix.

Happy cooking and see you for another issue of Forks & Chopstix in a couple of weeks!

x Mark

Forks & Chopstix

A very optimistic cake

Cinnamon and Dark Rum-Spiced Apple Cake

Okay cool, now:

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