Apple and cinnamon tea cake

A few years ago I received a Donna Hay cookbook from an electricity company that I had recently switched to. It is entitled Simple Essentials: Fruit, that contained various recipes for summer fruits. I was thrilled about getting this cookbook and thought, wow, I could really whip up some beauties. Not sure if this was a thank you gift from the company or was it a secret inducement for me to cook more, which in turn would increase my use of electricity and thus my electricity bill would soar. Conspiracy! It was not to be. It was then to lie abandoned in my kitchen draw to be eventually claimed by my daughter as her own. I would not look into this cookbook to seriously consider making anything for two further years.

The years rolled by, I had turned greyer, my children had grown taller and my husband pretty much stayed the same. He is ageless. The kids and I were to head over to their friends place and at first I thought, I told myself I need to get something for them as a thank you gift. Then I thought, what would be better was for me to cook something that would show I did appreciate the invite. I had a recipe that I had my eye on for the past two week and so I made it today. Here is an apple and cinnamon tea cake from Donna Hay.

The ingredients

185 grams softened butter

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2/3 cups caster sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

1/3 cup of milk

Topping

4 small green apples

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup apricot jam, warm

The method

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Place the butter, cinnamon and sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and creamy.

Gradually, one by one, add the eggs and beat well.

Sift the flour and baking powder over the butter mixture and add the milk, stirring until combined.

Line the base of a spring-form tin with non-stick baking paper and spoon in the mixture.

For the topping, cut a row of deep slits in each apple half and arrange on the top of the cake. I used two apples as they were too big and there was no way 8 apple halves would have fitted on top of the cake.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and then sprinkle over the apples. Place it in the oven and bake it for 50 minutes. Then remove the cake from the oven and brush the cake with warm jam and then return it to the oven for a further ten minutes. Then your cake is ready to eat.

I had some issues with removing it from the pan as the baking paper had finished. I had to turn it upside down on a plate, remove the baking pan's bottom and then put it upright on another plate. A small part of it got stuck to the plate and so the pictures below are when the cake was untouched, still stuck to the pan.