Cake Decorating Community - Cakes We Bake

Dear Friends,

I just have to share this with you all.  My husband has been telling me all week how lovely this cake is.  As I only allow myself cake at the weekend, I had to wait until today to confirm it and boy, it was just divine!  Nectar even.  So I wanted to share.  Not much to look at, but.......

Devonshire Apple Cake a la Katy


450g apples (cookers or eaters - we have a lot in the garden so I used those)

lemon juice

350g self raising flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

350g caster sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp almond essence

225g butter, melted

generous scattering of shredded, flaked or chopped almonds (any other nut will do - I used crushed hazlenuts as they were all I had)

For the syrup

About 150ml honey 

2-3 teaspoons almond essence

Oven Temp. 180C/350F/Gas No. 4

Grease and base line your tin.  The recipe calls for a 12 x 9 in (30 x 23cm) roasting tin, but I used a 11 x 7 in for a slightly deeper cake.

Peel, core and thinly slice the apples and squeeze the lemon juice over them.

Measure the flour, baking powder and sugar into a large bowl.  Beat the eggs together with the almond essence and stir into the flour with the melted butter.  Mix well then spread half this mixture into the tin.  Arrange the apples over the top of the cake mixture.  Carefully top with the rest of the mixture - don't worry if the apples show through a little. Sprinkle over the nuts.

Bake in the oven for about one and a quarter hours, until cake is golden, firm to the touch and slightly shrunk away from the sides of the tin.  Take out of the oven and while the cake is still warm, mix the honey and almond essence together and blitz in the microwave for about 10-15 secs to make it into a runny liquid.  Pierce the cake in several places with a skewer and evenly pour over the honey syrup.  Leave to cool for 15 mins before turning out. (you will probably get a bit sticky here with the syrup topping and will have to turn the cake back upright again straight away to keep the sticky side up).

This will be delicious served warm, sprinkled with caster sugar and served with cream or is just as tasty cold (as vouched for by my taster!).

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I am going to put this in my favorites to try it out when I get back.......

June has it Goreti.  I wasn't always like this.  I have always loved my food and my ma was a great cook - real old fashioned stuff like steamed puddings, cream cakes, dumplings.... She, like me now, believed that feeding people wonderful food was one of the best ways to show love.  My weight has fluctuated wildly over the years, but when I was approaching 50, something happened in my head.  I just suddenly decided enough is enough.  I was in a deep depression, didn't want to get up in the mornings and hated myself.  Mick said - I think you have got to your optimum fighting weight now sweetie.  Funny, but true.  So I got a grip and lost the weight.  Then when I lost my job 2 years ago, I started going for daily exercise that developed into jogging almost on a daily basis.  I love that time in the morning to myself - just me, my music and the streets.  Running is getting harder as the arthritis in the knees is getting worse lol!  But I am still very, very, strict on what I eat Monday to Friday.  Weekends is a free for all - whatever, whenever.  That way I know I can maintain my size and I am so much happier for it.   Trust me, my scales respond to indulgence in a heartbeat, which is why I know I can only do it now and again.  I am never, never going back to the fatso that I was.

Yes - you have more important things on the horizon at the moment Anne.  The cake will wait.

Anne M said:

I am going to put this in my favorites to try it out when I get back.......

Good for you Katy
I lost weight & kept it off for 4 yrs. Can't say what happened for sure, but it crept up. Really started back strict. I try to say to myself.... "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels"..... a old WW adage. I get so mad at myself when I cheat, cause in the end, your only cheating yourself!! Oh we'll, no point beating myself up, just makes it worse. :0)

June  - when you're ready, you're ready and not before.  I'm now trying to get the smoking under control and not doing too badly.  Mick has really cut down after that bad chest infection and we're doing it together.

I have to give you credit Katy.  I hate to exercise but used to do it faithfully.  Then I went to work for the phone co as a cssr in their call center.  It was so stressful and the last thing I wanted to do was exercise.  I left that job 2 yrs ago but have not gotten back into a routine of regular exercise but am very careful about my diet.  If I wasn't, I would probably weigh 200lbs but I am not where I would like to be.  I could afford to lose another 15 to get where I was 13 yrs ago which is where I would like to be.

Ahhhh  We are never happy with ourselves.... blame those darn glamour women in tv & movies!!!!

For me it's not about the weight or the way I look as such. All my life I have liked feeling strong. When I was a wee girl, I used to wish I had BIG muscles, body building muscles, but back then there weren't any female body builders and to be honest I really don't like that 'stocking stuffed with walnuts' look. Just a bit of definition is fine. So when I had my kids I spent all my time with them, doing things with them, and never once focused on me. I didn't have time to. I became very unhappy about not being able to just walk (waddle) into a shop and buy off the rack. I stopped wearing makeup, as my (soon to be) ex husband didn't like it, and worst thing of all, I didn't feel strong!
It wasn't until a friend of mine started at Curves that I realised that it was time for me. I saw her down the street one day, about two months after she had started at Curves and the only reason I recognised her was because she was holding her young daughter's hand! So off I went and have been going ever since. I do circuit training, Zumba and every now and then I think about doing the boot camp they run twice a week...but I don't think I'm fit enough yet. I don't own scales, other than the ones I use in the kitchen, and I get weighed and measured once a month. I don't care about the weight these days, it's the centimeters that determine what sized clothes you fit into!
I went out the other day and bought a pair of jeans off the rack. No biggy you might think, BUT it's the first pair of jeans WITHOUT an elastic waist that I have bought in over a decade!
I feel stronger, my core muscles are doing what they're supposed to, My back has stopped aching, as have my hips, I can stretch straight legged and have my fingers reach past my toes, I don't hear my heartbeat in my ears when I simply walk from the bathroom to the bedroom anymore and these are more important than merely looking good. My grandmother was a grandmotherly type, all pinny and dimples and she died suddenly from a stroke, the day before she was to come out to Australia to see her grandkids - my brothers and I. I don't want to end up that way, not without a fight, and if I look good doing it, meh that's ok, but not the most important thing for me.

You know Bettina

In all truth and honesty.  We should try our best to be within our weight range and we must excercise... not for looks, but for a strong heart & bones. You feel so much better and live a less complicated life health wise. I saw so much in 20 yrs in homecare. People not taking care of themselves and the terrible results.

A lecturer I had for anatomy and physiology and later pathophysiology, said if you don't use it you'll lose it. What he meant was we have to use our muscles in a full range of motion so we don't lose muscle mass and place stress on our tendons and ligaments, and weight bear on our bones so we don't lose bone mass. I saw so many elderly who had a fall, so they became too frightened to walk or get a bout so they sat a lot. They lost bone mass and the next time they fell they broke or fractured something - usually a hip - and they became more frightened of being hurt so they did even less, and ended up with fractures and breaks from activities that shouldn't have caused that. Not to mention, amputations from poor circulation, diabetes, impaired liver function..the list goes on!
At some part we lose sight of our bodies and tend to ignore it until you imply can't anymore or you have a crisis moment. It's a very complex issue with no easy answers, geez if there was I'd be making a fortune instead of baking what I love. LOL

I do know that since I have taken my life back, for me, that my taste has changed. I used to drink a LOT of coke and now I find it is too sweet an makes me feel sick. My chocolate taste now ranges more to the dark side than the milk chocolate that I luuuuurved so much. I actually prefer the taste of salads, grilled fish etc because the other just makes me feel unwell. Yay! It all feels different this time around because I think that the reason for getting off my backside and taking action is not to lose weight but to feel strong again.

Bettina I hear everything you say and agree with it all.  The reason I walk/run is no longer for the weight issue, but because I feel better for it.  I have the inevitable arthritis coming on in my joints and sitting doing nothing, does not help it, it just gets stiffer.  The exercise helps keeps the joints moving (along with 1000mg of cod liver oil daily).  I can, and do, run up the stairs. And that heart throbbing in your ears thing, yes I know that too.  But it's getting less and less every day.

Success! Made it yesterday! Thanks

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