This easy Dorset Apple Cake recipe is super simple and tastes divine! The combination of tart Bramley apples, sweet sultanas and warm cinnamon is perfect to welcome in autumnal apple season.
English Regional Cakes and Puddings
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 regional recipes as we go and, if you’re like me, gathering ingredients and having a go at making them!
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 the mountain and how could I resist a Singing Hinnie in Northumberland?!
We’ve been spending a lot of time in Dorset recently. We live right on the border and our boat is now moored in Poole. We’ve had lots of time to enjoy this beautiful county of rolling countryside and its 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
Dorset apple cake is a moist, fruity cake full of flavour. Apples and sultanas are folded into flour with eggs, milk, sugar and cinnamon before being sprinkled with crunchy Demerara sugar.
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!
Serve it cold in slices or warm from the oven with some really good vanilla ice cream.
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!
More Sweet Autumnal Recipes To Try
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Dorset Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 225 g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 115 g unsalted butter diced and chilled, plus extra for greasing
- 115 g light brown sugar
- 1 large egg beaten
- 6-8 tbsp milk
- 225 g Bramley or Granny Smith apple peeled, cored and diced
- 100 g sultanas
- 2 tbsp demerara sugar optional
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease and line a deep 20cm/8 inch 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.
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!