Sunday 5 January 2014

American 1-2-3 Cake

I often make a soup on a Sunday afternoon but every now and then I make a cake instead.

I recently saw an interesting recipe on Facebook for a layered cherry cake but the recipe used tinned cherry pie filling and since I do try not to use tins and since I was given loads of apples this autumn I decided to make an apple cake.

The reason I suggest it is a 1-2-3 cake is that the main ingredients, butter, sugar and flour are in 1 cup, 2 cups and 3 cups measurements. As it is an American recipe it is important to keep to the cup measurements, trying to convert to metric doesn't really work.


I like to get all my ingredients weighed out and dry ingredients mixed and ready to go.

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 cup softened butter
2 cups caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (the original recipe used vanilla extract but I like the little flecks from the vanilla bean paste)
1/4 tsp almond extract
4 eggs
3 cups Self Raising Flour
1 tsp salt
2-3 cups home made apple sauce or 2 tins of pie filling

Glaze:
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 180oC/350oC. Grease a 9" x 13" pan

Method:
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (the more you cream the lighter and more voluminous your cake will be).

Add the eggs one at a time and beating each one really well. If you want you can add 1 Tbsp of the flour after each one to stop them splitting. Then add the vanilla bean paste and almond extract.



Gradually add the flour and salt and beat until really well combined. If you want you can add a tablespoon of milk at this point.


Put about half of the cake mixture into the prepared pan. Spread the fruit mixture over the top and then dollop the rest of the cake mixture onto the fruit. You don't need to spread this top.


Bake for approximately 35 minutes although mine took another 10 minutes (ovens do vary).


Allow the cake to cool to just warm and then make the glaze by mixing the four ingredients together


and drizzling over the top.


Then all that is left to do is ...... ENJOY!


I got this recipe from a Facebook friend and made the small changes. I will be trying different fillings in the future.

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