'Surprise' Apple Loaf Cake

I'd have a lovely weekend & I'd spent most times in food & baking.

My plan for the weekend was to work as the deadline of my assignment is soon.

I was feeling lazy & it was weekend after all.

I love apples & so most of my recipes posted here are about apples, so does chocolate.

Here come another apple cake but it's no ordinary cake.

Take a first look outside, mmm... buttter cake.

Look again, there are apples inside!

I love the idea of baking the cake with the whole apples in it.

The recipe is from one of the books I bought from Shenzhen.

The book includes butter cakes only, half of it is about savoury butter cakes which aren't really my type.

After the success of this lovely butter cake, I might give it a try.

It was bright & sunny in the morning when I took the photos.

I set up a table in the front garden & took all the photos there.

Great lighting & the photos look good, I should take more food photos in the garden.

People passing by might wonder what am I doing... If you see a girl shooting cakes in the front garden, that might be me.

'Surprise' Apple Loaf Cake

Recipe (loaf cake):

adapted from 'Fall in Love with Cakes'（爱上蛋糕：我的甜蜜烘焙）

Sweet Apples

3 small/medium apples

20 g sugar

20 g unsalted butter

3 dried prunes

1 tbsp rum

1 tbsp elderflower cordial (optional)

3 cinnamon sticks

Blend rum & prunes in a small bowl, set aside.

Wash & prick apples with fork, use a spoon to remove the core.

Combine sugar, melted butter & cordial, spoon into the apples.

Place apples in a microwave-proof bowl, cover with cling film & heat in a microwave at medium power for 10 min.

Once cool, put one prune inside each apple followed by a cinnamon stick.

Cake

100 g unsalted butter

60 g sugar

2 eggs

120 g plain flour

3 sweet apples

4 tbsp apple syrup from above

Line the loaf cake pan with baking paper.

In a large bowl, whisk softened butter with sugar until pale & fluffy.

Beat in eggs, one at a time, until smooth.

Sieve in the flour, mix to combine.

Pour in the apple syrup & mix until smooth.

Pour in 1/3 of the batter, flatten the surface then put in the sweet apples.

Cover the apples & fill in the gap with remaining batter.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 10 min, lower to 170C & bake for 20 min.

Remove from the oven, brush some rum over the cake & leave to cool on a wire rack.