Apple and Blackberry cake

Every week that passes, I am getting more stronger and last week I felt like doing some baking again, I still had a small tub of blackberries stashed in the freezer which I'd picked last summer and after a quick google, I made slight adaptations to this recipe from the National Trust.

This makes a large cake, perfect for partnering with lots of lovely custard or cream! The cake has a really lovely texture and perfect for afternoon tea or for pudding. I thought I'd taken a picture of it dusted all nicely with icing sugar but can't find it..My pictures are also a bit small at the moment, I've just switched mobile phones and not worked out how to upload them in a better size yet!

The original recipe states a 20cm loose bottomed tin, though when I looked at my finished mixture and my 20cm tin it didn't look right, so used a 23cm instead. I wonder if its meant to be a deeper tin, as there is no way it would fit a sandwich tin! 

Firstly, line the tin, I recently picked up a tip from watching Jamie's 30 Minute meals - scrunch up the baking paper under a running tap, then use it to line the tin. It feels so wrong to do but it really works a treat, getting into all the corners and certainly cheaper than me buying the ready made liners!

Ingredients

2 eating apples, peeled, cored and grated + 1 for decoration

Big handful frozen blackberries

250g butter (I used Stork)

250g Self raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g caster sugar

100g light soft brown sugar + 1 tsp for finishing (recipe states golden caster sugar but had run out)

1 tsp ground cinnamon - optional

Icing sugar to dust

Pre-heat oven 160 fan/ 180o/ Gas 4

Cream together the butter, sugars baking powder, cinnamon and flour, beat in the eggs and vanilla, stir in the apple.

Spoon roughly a third of the mixture into your pan, add a scatter of blackberries, repeat and top with remaining mixture

Take the remaining apple, cored but unpeeled, carefully cut thin slices and use to decorate the top of the cake, placing any remaining blackberries in the middle and sprinkle over a little of the brown sugar and a little dust of cinnamon

Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden, cover tightly with foil and bake for a further 35-40 minutes. Dust with icing sugar and cool in the tin

Cut into 12 slices and serve, preferably still slightly warm from the oven