Spiced apple pound cake with cinnamon butter cream

Apple spiced pound cake with cardamom butter cream

If you had to add a third cake to your baking repertoire outside chocolate and vanilla, I dare say this is it. A gorgeous, spiced brown sugar pound cake. It might not be a high rise, teetering on the edge thanks to 10kg of adornments but it doesn’t mean this cake is any kind of wallflower, it is small but mighty. And oh so perfect with a cup of tea.

Ingredients

180g brown sugar

240g butter

4 eggs

190g plain flour, sifted

1 heaped tsp baking powder

pinch salt
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

1 tsp each: cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg

1 cup dried apple, chopped

Butter cream (makes 450g)

1 tbsp ground cardamom

100g butter, softened

300g icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

75ml double cream (or use milk)

Method

Preheat oven to 175C.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and spices.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and chopped apple.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, beating until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, smooth the top, and bake for 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean. If you find the cake is browning too much on top., cover tightly with foil and return to oven to continue cooking.

For the butter cream beat the butter for 4 minutes on high speed until pale. Add the sugar, vanilla, cardamom and cream and beat on low speed to bring it together, then turn up and beat on high for another 2-3 minutes.

Generously ice the cake, concentrating the icing on top of the cake and create loose, decadent swirls in the icing with a knife.