43: Gordon Ramsay's Spiced Apple Cake!

Published by Emily, December 27th, 2014

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! If you read my last post, you’d know I’m on a bit of a health kick now (chocolate is healthy… right?) and may be confused by the cake photo above. Fear not, I only had one slice of this cake… in November. Before I explain why you’re looking at a 7 week old dish, I’d like to mention that this ‘cake’ is fairly healthy, low in sugar, more like a dessert bread, and delicious. I made it for a party one morning in the middle of a water outage.

Cooking without water is a pretty interesting challenge and a brilliant exercise in water conservation. I had half a pitcher of water to work with because I didn’t have the sense to set up water reserves prior to the outage. You wouldn’t believe how many times I tried to flip the kitchen faucet on though. Water is just one of the many things we take for granted because of its illusory abundance and accessibility. I always try to scale back the amount of water I use, but this experience definitely challenged me to use water more efficiently and rethink conservation strategies. It’s a pretty neat experience — someone should start an online campaign to get more people to try throwing together a whole meal without turning on the tap.

Anyway, the apple cake turned out delicious. It was very moist, perfectly spiced and just the right amount of sweetness.

Recipe

Ingredients

5-6 cooking apples

2 tbsp butter (and extra to grease)

2 ripe braeburn Apples (I used russet cause that’s all I had on hand)

Juice from 1 lemon

1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp gound cloves

1 large egg, beaten

1/4 cup light olive oil

2 tbsp apricot jam (to glaze)

1-2 tbsp water

Prepare the apples by peeling, coring and slicing the cooking apples. Place them in a wide pan with the sugar and butter. Cook until the apples have broken down to a pulp and all of the water has cooked off. This takes about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Heat the oven to 325F. Line and lightly grease a springform pan. Peel, core and finely slice the apples using a mandolin or sharp knife. Place the apples in a bowl and pour the lemon juice along with a splash of water over it in order to prevent them from browning.

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and ground spices in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and add the egg, olive oil and apple puree. Fold until everything is just combined.

Transfer the mixture to the springform pan and bake for 30 minutes until the centre is a bit firm. Take the cake out of the oven.

Quickly overlap the sliced apples in concentric circles on top of the cake leaving a wide margin around the edge of the cake. Brush the slices with a bit of lemon juice and return the cake to the oven before baking for another 30 minutes.

Cool the cake slightly before removing it from the springform pan. Warm the apricot jelly with the tbsp of water and stir until smooth. Brush the jelly over the cake to glaze. Serve the cake warm and enjoy!