Many years ago I had a lovely Jewish friend, whose mother was happy to entertain us in her kitchen and answer my multitude of cooking questions. This recipe was one of hers.
I haven’t made this in many years, in all honesty I had forgotten it until I came across it tucked into the back of a recipe book. It makes a lovely dessert, served warm with cream or ice cream and holds up well to being made gluten free. The recipe is in cups which is not my favourite unit of measurement but I do have a lovely set of measuring cups. If you don’t a tea cup or coffee mug will do, just use the same cup to measure everything. You might also want to avoid any particularly enormous mugs!
Honey Cake with confit apple slices
Delicious warm or cold as a dessert or afternoon tea.
Ingredients
Confit Apple
- 3 apples Peeled and thinly sliced crosswise
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 vanilla pod Split lengthwise
- 3 cloves
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 tablespoon honey
Honey Cake
- 2 1/2 cups plain white flour I used Dove's Farm gluten free flour
- 2 teaspoons Bicarbonate of Soda
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup honey
- 1 1/4 cups brewed coffee instant is fine
- 6 tablespoons olive oil you could use any other mild tasting vegetable oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
Confit apple
- Preheat the oven to 100 degrees C
- Peel the apples and slice thinly crosswise.
- In a bowl mix together the sugar, honey, cinnamon, vanilla pod and cloves. Don't worry too much about how well its mixed.
- Toss the apple slices in the sugar mix.
- Arrange the apple slices in a single layer in an ovenproof frying pan. (A casserole dish works just as well) and tip in any leftover sugar mix making sure you get all your spices in.
- Add just enough water to cover the apples. Bring to a simmer. Then cover tightly with foil and pop into the oven for an hour.
Honey cake
- Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
- Line two small loaf tins or one large one with greaseproof paper
- Mix the flour and baking sugar together
- Using a mixed beat the eggs, add in the sugar, honey, coffee, oil, salt and cinnamon and beat again.
- Add in the flour and bicarbonate of soda and beat until it just comes together. This is a very runny batter.
- Pour the batter into your loaf tins
- Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean. If using one large loaf tin you will need to adjust your cooking time, around 35 minutes
- Top with the confit apple slices and serve.
- If storing keep the cape separate from the apple until serving.
- You can drizzle a simple syrup of 1/2 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons of honey, a pinch of cinnamon heated gently until sugar is dissolved and the colour has darkened.