Grandma's Apple Cake

The perfect everyday cake-not too sweet, and it gets more pleasingly dense and gunky the longer you keep it. Great with a cuppa.

Serves: 12

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 90 minutes

Source: Familia Hughes via a long-ago newspaper cutting

Ingredients:

Butter, for greasing

5 large eating apples (any kind)

2tbsp lemon juice

3tsp cinnamon

450g (1lb) caster sugar

4 eggs

250ml (9fl oz) sunflower oil

60ml (2¼fl oz) milk

60ml (2¼fl oz) orange juice (or use 120ml/4 1/2fl oz orange juice and no milk for a dairy-free version)

1tbsp vanilla extract

375g (13oz) plain flour, plus extra for dusting

1tbsp baking powder

½tsp salt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan 150°C/gas 3.

Grease a 20cm (8in) deep springform or loose-bottomed cake tin with butter and line with baking parchment. Do not peel the apples, but cut them into thin slices, removing the core. Place the slices in a bowl with the lemon juice, cinnamon and 5tbsp of the caster sugar and toss to coat. Beat the eggs with the remaining sugar in a bowl and add the sunflower oil, milk, orange juice and vanilla extract. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. The batter will be quite liquid - this is how it is supposed to be. Now the layering can commence. Place a quarter of the batter in the cake tin, then arrange a third of the apples on top. Add another quarter of batter, and so on. When you come to the last layer of apples, pour over any of the residual lemony 'syrup', and finish with a layer of batter. Bake for around 1 1/2 hours, until the sponge is springy and coming away from the edges of the tin. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin.