Apple Toscakaka

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone is having a lovely day with their families. I had an early mother's day two weekends ago with mine where we hit up fabulous London.

Posting a recipe today that reminds me of my nanny, who makes a mean apple pie. I decided to take those flavours and play with them a little (because apart from nanny's apple pie - I don't really eat pie!).

Toscakaka is something I've made before, a classic Swedish almond caramel cake. I had some cooking apples hanging around and some slivered almonds, so I decided to experiment!

One thing I love about cooking is the endless substitutions and possibilities to change up, tweak, and play around with favourite recipes. I love that you can substitute something like butter for stewed apples (which is a delicious and dairy free alternative!).

This is the appropriate amount of custard

So here, I substituted the melted butter for stewed apple, which gives it this beautiful hint of fruity tart sweetness to cut through the rich caramel topping. And it works! It's gorgeous. I served it with custard and I'll dream about that combo for weeks.

Ingredients for the stewed apple

• 2 cooking apples
• 1 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon                                       

Ingredients for the Cake

• 2 eggs
• 125g granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 125g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 25ml milk

Ingredients for the Topping

• 85g butter
• 50g golden caster sugar
• 40g caster sugar
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 cup of slivered almonds

Method

Begin by stewing the apple. Peel and chop the apple into chunks.

Place in a small pan with the rest of the ingredients for stewing and cook on a low heat, stirring occasionally. After about 15 minutes they should be softened and stewed.

Set this aside.

Beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar for a few minutes until smooth and glossy. Add in the flour and baking powder and stir.

Add the apples and mix well. Add enough milk to give the cake a smooth, dropping consistency (you may need less or more depending on how much stewed apple you for out of the two apples).

Pour into a prepared 20cm springform cake tin and bake for 25 minutes.

While that’s cooking, make your topping by putting all of those ingredients into a small saucepan.  Cook over a low heat and stir regularly until golden and thickened.

Pour over the cake after it’s been in for 25 minutes, and put back in the oven for 15 more minutes.

Remove from the oven and release carefully from the springform sides. Allow to cool for 15 minutes on a rack, then remove the greaseproof paper lining the sides.

Let cool to room temperature before slicing and serving.

You might need custard for this. Trust me.