I love the quirky English desserts and cakes tradition, each county having its own speciality which is defended to the hilt. A quick wander around the map offers me such delights as The Bedfordshire Clanger, Lardy Cake and Sally Lunn’s Bath Buns. I quite fancy nibbling a slice of Bakewell Pudding in the Peak District, dipping into Snowdon Pudding halfway up that mountain and how could I resist a Singing Hinnie in Northumberland?!
We have been holidaying in the UK every year since the children were born either afloat on our boat or in a self catering cottage. The beauty of holidaying in our green and pleasant land is discovering all these regional delights and, if you’re like me, gathering ingredients and having a go at making them! I’ve been spending a lot of time in Dorset recently, we live right on the border, our boat is now moored down in Poole and it’s a beautiful, beautiful county of rolling countryside and Jurassic coastline. It is, of course, also home to the Dorset Apple Cake! If you’re looking for somewhere to holiday this year I think this is reason enough alone to visit Dorset!
Dorset Apple Cake is super simple to make and tastes divine, I love the combination of tart Bramley apples, sweet sultanas and warm cinnamon, it’s a perfect cake – only made better when it is served warm from the oven with some really good vanilla ice cream.
- 225g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 115g unsalted butter, diced and chilled, plus extra for greasing
- 115g light brown sugar
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 6-8 tbsp milk
- 225g Bramley or Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and diced
- 100g sultana
- 2 tbsp demerara sugar (optional)
- Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas 4. Grease and line a deep 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.
- Mix the flour and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour using your fingers, until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the light brown sugar. Beat in the egg followed by 6 – 8 tbsp of milk – you want to achieve a smooth, thick batter.
- Add the apples and sultanas and mix to combine. Scrape the batter into your prepared tin and gently level out. Sprinkle over the Demerara sugar and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes and then carefully turn out onto a wire rack to cool further. Best served still warm with a little custard or some Dorset vanilla ice cream
The recipe says Demerara sugar is ‘optional’ but it’s not really is it?! A Dorset apple cake without that crispy, sugary topping wouldn’t be quite the same!
Why not pin this post to save for later? I think once you start imagining the taste of apples, sultanas and cinnamon in a cake warm from the oven it is only a matter of time before you will need to make it!
This post is produced in collaboration with cottages.com who have thousands of self catering cottages located throughout the UK – so tell me, where should we head off to for our annual cottage holiday this autumn, and which local baking delights should we be trying?
Hello! I'm Chris, vegan lover of life, wordsmith, storyteller, picture taker, mum to four. Welcome to Thinly Spread where I share recipes, kitchen stories, travels, adventures and family warmth from our home in deepest Somerset and our boat in Poole. 
I stayed in a self-catering cottage in Dorset last year and LOVED it! We found this tiny village that had 3 small beaches that we basically had all to ourselves the whole week. It was perfect 🙂 Would love to go back.
Anyway, this cake is calling my name! It would be easy to veganise since it only uses one egg. Need to try it!
How lovely to have your own boat. Years ago we hired a barge on the Leeds Liverpool Canal with friends when our youngest were 18 months old, it was an amazing experience. Apart from Disney Paris, we always hired a self catering cottage in England, we felt it gave us a lot of freedom. We especially like the Lake District but we went all over including Kent, Northumberland, Devon and Cornwall (it rained the entire week).
We found an adorable walkers’ tearoom in the Lake District which sold the most amazing scones at least 3 times the size of a normal one. I haven’t stayed in Dorset, we’ve just driven through and I haven’t tried the Dorset Apple Cake, it looks so delicious and I fancy a slice now. Like Aimee said, I also think it would be easy to veganise, I’m going to pin it to try.
It’s hard to beat a good apple cake and yours looks delicious. Of course Cornwall is a wonderful place to stay and we have Saffron buns, Hevva Cake and Cornish splits to name but a few.
I do love a proper apple cake, it’s been so long since I’ve had a slice! I could just tuck into that now with a nice cuppa!