Apple and tea cake

Difficulty 1/5

This cake is tea time’s best friend ever. It has apple inside the batter as well as on top, and not to mention that tea is actually an ingredient. It’s amazingly moist and tasty, and will make a great companion for a rustic meal or any teatime whatsoever. It’s also very easy, it just takes a bit of patience in the oven as it takes some time to bake, but the wait is absolutely worth it. The smell that comes out when it’s in the oven makes you want to eat it half-raw <3

Portions: 27cm mould 

Ingredients:
– 400g sugar + more for sprinkling
– 240ml vegetable oil
– 60g butter, unsalted and at room temperature + 20g for painting the top
– 4 1/2 green apples
– 480g all purpose flour
– 2 tbsp baking powder
– 1 1/2 tsp salt
– 100ml milk
– 2 black tea bags
–  1 tsp ground cinnamon
– juice of 2 lemons
– 4 eggs
– 1/2 tsbp vanilla essence

Procedure:
1. Heat up milk until it just starts to boil, and put the tea bags inside until it cools completely, then remove them.

2. Peel and grate 3 of the apples through the thick grater (don’t use the core), keep in water and the juice of 1 lemon so it doesn’t oxidize.

3. Cut in 4 the 1 1/2 apple left, then cut diagonally to remove the core. Finally do fine slices for the top. Also keep them in water with the juice of the other lemon.
3. Whisk the butter until very smooth. Then add the oil and sugar and whisk until no lumps remain.

4. Whisk in the eggs, vanilla and milk.
5. Add all dry ingredients and mix with a spatula. Finish with the grated apples, which from you need to remove as much moisture as you can. 6. Rub a bit of oil around you cake pan and use it to stick baking paper all around, this will make it a lot easier to unstick once it’s done.
7. Put the mix in, and arrange the slices of apple on the top, also removed of moisture before putting. Then brush with extra melted butter and sprinkle sugar on top of them. This goes into the oven at 175C for 1 hour (you can check at 45min if you don’t trust your oven) or until a skewer comes out clean from the center.

Wait for it to cool down a bit, take out, peel the paper and EAT! It’s amazing warm so go for a slice when it comes out of the oven. I hope you like this recipe and maybe you’ll try it for you next cuppa tea 😉