spiced up apple and walnut slice cake

I'm developing a sweet tooth with all this baking I'm now craving on a daily basis.  Its the ritual of the measuring, cracking and experimenting that has me wanting more.  I love that you can plop together plain old ingredients and end up with a multitude of baked goods within an hours notice.  I smile everytime I open the oven to see what has transpired.  I'm bending the rules with recipes but keeping to basic principles so as to not have too many failures.  The only thing that has been binned was some baked rice pudding that was forgotten due to too much talking to visitors.  It was a shame as I'd lovingly added fresh vanilla bean and the smells from the oven were heavenly, but once unveiled I rather red faced put the train wreck in the bin.  I really must do it again, otherwise it will become my baking nemesis, bloody rice of all things!!

I've gone a bit apple crazy this past week haven't I.  I had kindly been given a big load of organic apples from Dominique at Port Fairy Organics that were past their best for my fussy apple eater but perfect for this dish.  I came up with this recipe as I was tired of dear old apple crumble.  I also had a small amount of fruit mince left over from these babies here which was too good to throw out.  I've used some muscovado sugar too to add a depth of flavour and as it is unrefined, albeit a healthier version of white sugar.

Spiced Apple and Walnut Slice

2 cups SR flour

1/2 cup of caster sugar

1/2 cup of muscovado sugar

5 small apples, peeled, cored and finely sliced

3 tbspns of fruit mince* 

1 good handful of roughly chopped walnuts

110g melted butter, plus 10 gm for dotting on top

2 eggs, beaten

2 tspns cinnamon sugar (1 tspn cinnamon/1 tspn caster sugar)

a good grating of fresh nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 180c.  Line a slice tin or a pie dish with baking paper.  I used a pie dish.
2. Sift flour and sugars (muscovato can be quiet lumpy so worth the extra effort of sifting) in to a large bowl.
3. Heat the fruit mince ever so slightly in the microwave if its stiff from the fridge, or leave out on the bench for a few hours, I'm never that organised.  Toss through the apples and coat.
4. Add apple mixture to the flour/sugar mixture.  Add melted butter and beaten eggs and mix well until you form a type of dough.  The main thing you are after here is that all the flour is incorporated and coated with the butter and egg.
5. Press mixture into your dish of choice.  Sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar and dot with the 10 gms of butter.  Grate over a good amount of fresh nutmeg.
6. Bake at 180c approx 45 minutes, but check after 30 minutes.
7. Allow to cool in the dish on a wire rack.

We had this as a type of pudding while still warm from the oven with greek yoghurt.  Once this has completely cooled, it could be used as a cake served cold even with a light plain mixture of icing sugar and water made into a thin icing would be gorgeous.  It also needs to be said, please do yourself a favour and go out and buy yourself some fresh nutmeg, its under $2 for 5 or 6 whole nutmegs and the little darling graters can be brought as cheap as chips from the supermarket or your homewares shop.

*if you haven't any fruit mince, you can by all means use a mixture of 1 tspn each of sultanas, raisins, currants, orange or lemon peel, dried cranberries (omit any you don't have and make up with what you do have, could be all sultanas for that matter) mixed with a pinch each of ground ginger, cinnamon, ground coriander, a grate of fresh nutmeg and a tspn of muscovato sugar and a small amount of fruit juice, such as apple or orange just to moisten the mixture.  Leave to stand overnight to allow the fruit to soften and flavours to infuse.  Alternatively you can leave out all together, just add some of your favourite jam, around 3 tablespoons and toss the apples in this.

Oh how I love these types of puddings.....do you have a favourite pudding you make?  My bum will have a nice pudding wobble soon if I don't stop....but who's looking anyway!

Ciao, Jan