Method
Step 1:
Preheat the oven to 180C / 160C fan / gas mark 4 and grease and line the base of a 9 inch round cake tin.
Step 2:
Combine the dates and apple juice in a small saucepan and heat gently. Once boiled remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Step 3:
Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, adding a spoonful of flour if the mixture looks like it is starting to curdle. Sift and fold the flour and spices into the mixture as well as the cooled date mix. Pour into the cake tin and level.
Step 4:
Cut the apples into slices and dip into the lemon juice. Shake off the excess juice and arrange on top of the cake in a circular pattern. Bake the cake for 50 -55 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Step 5:
Leave to cool slightly before removing from the tin and leaving to cool fully on a wire rack.
Step 6:
To make the toffee sauce, combine all of the ingredients in a small saucepan and heat gently until they start to bubble. Continue to heat until for a few minutes until ingredients are all combined and the sauce has a characteristic toffee colour.
Step 7:
Serve the cake with the toffee sauce drizzled over (toffee sauce still warm is lovely!) and enjoy.
If you want to make more recipes with apples, why not try an apple crumble? This video shows you how it's done.
Ingredients
For The Cake
- 175g Unsalted butter (softened)
- 125g Billington's Unrefined Light Muscovado Sugar
- 100g Dates (stoned, roughly chopped)
- 70ml Apple juice
- 3 Free range medium eggs
- 220g Allinson's Self Raising White Flour
- 2 tsp Mixed spice
- 3 Apples
- 1 lemon Juice of one whole lemon
For the Toffee Sauce
- 150ml Double cream
- 85g Salted butter
- 100g Billington's unrefined demerara sugar
- 1 tbsp Silver spoon black treacle
Utensils
- 9in circular cake tin
- Mixing bowl
- Wooden spoon
Recipe Reviews
By the 50-minute mark my cake was dry as toast all the way through.. It also required something in the range of one apple rather than three, and it is a tiny cake, so make sure you use a tiny tin.
This was so easy to make and super yummy
Ingredients
For The Cake
- 175g Unsalted butter (softened)
- 125g Billington's Unrefined Light Muscovado Sugar
- 100g Dates (stoned, roughly chopped)
- 70ml Apple juice
- 3 Free range medium eggs
- 220g Allinson's Self Raising White Flour
- 2 tsp Mixed spice
- 3 Apples
- 1 lemon Juice of one whole lemon
For the Toffee Sauce
- 150ml Double cream
- 85g Salted butter
- 100g Billington's unrefined demerara sugar
- 1 tbsp Silver spoon black treacle
Utensils
- 9in circular cake tin
- Mixing bowl
- Wooden spoon