Apple and Cinnamon Tea Cake (Donna Hay)

Apples.
Cinnamon.
Cake.

Yum.

Apple and Cinnamon Tea Cake

My co-worker went to the American Library Association conference last year (oh yeah, thousands of librarians in one place...[insert your own joke here]). She was waltzing around the vendor area and one of them was packing up...decided to not shlep all of the display books back home...so she gave away this great Donna Hay Simple Essentials: Fruit book!

And then my co-worker gave the book to me! How sweet! Oh yeah, did I mention that pages were marked with "suggestions" to make and bring to work?! (just kidding...sorta)

This book is awesome and beautiful. Every recipe is short and sweet (she fits 4 recipes on one page!!) and each one has an awesome photo. Donna Hay has a lovely empire of magazines and books. Australia is so lucky to have such a gem.

Okay, so my intention was to make the cake as directed on page 82...but I didn't have all the ingredients and ended up substituting so many things I don't know if its her recipe anymore. Anyway, my creation was yummy. And I'm sure her recipe would only be much better, richer and more delicious. I'll gather all the right ingredients and make it again.

Here are the changes I made:
- Used an 8” springform (instead of an 8 1/2" springform) so mine is a bit taller. Next time, I'll use a 9" springform.
- Used what I had at the time – skim milk instead of whole milk.
- Used granulated sugar instead of caster or superfine sugar (because I didn’t have it on hand)
- Misread the ingredient list and used 6 oz. butter (1 ½ sticks) instead of 6 ½ oz.

apple and cinnamon tea cake

Cream together: 6 ½ oz. soft butter (if my conversions are right, this should be 1 stick + 5 T butter), ½ t cinnamon and 2/3 c caster (superfine) sugar.
Add one at a time: 3 eggs.
Sift onto batter: 1 ½ c all-purpose flour and ½ t baking powder.
Mix in: 1/3 c milk.

Place on top of batter: 4 small green apples, peeled, halved, cored, and cut thin - but don't cut all the way through. I didn't press them down at all because the apples were small snack size gala apples. Sprinkle on top: 1 t sugar and ¼ t cinnamon.

Bake for 50 minutes (160 C / 320 F) then brush on ¼ c apricot jam or jelly, warmed. Pop back into oven and bake for another 10 minutes or so. I ended up baking mine for 65 minutes at 325 F.

Yummy! And the co-worker who gave me the book? She loved this cake. Thought it really focused on the apple.

Get a copy of Donna Hay's Fruit book here, or see if your library has it on Worlcat!