Autumn windfall: Toffee apple cake with lashings of butterscotch sauce

Chef Edward Hayden shares some tempting recipes that make the most of the season’s apple crop.

Toffee Apple Cake

This is a great special-occasion cake and is delicious to serve warm, without the icing, but with lashings and lashings of butterscotch sauce. Serves 12

Ingredients

For the cake:

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350g butter

350g Demerara sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

6 large eggs

1 medium-sized cooking apple, grated

350g self-raising flour

For the icing:

450g icing sugar

75g tinned carnation caramel

175g butter

To garnish:

150g tinned carnation caramel

3 apples

Wooden twigs (I have used dried beech)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.

2. Grease and line three 20cm sandwich tins

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter with the sugar and golden syrup until very light and fluffy.

4. Gradually add the eggs, grated apple and mix in the flour.

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until the cake is well set – a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come away spotlessly clean and dry. When the cake is cooked, take it out of the oven and allow it to cool in the tin as it will still be quite soft. Ideally, you should have the cake made the day before you require it. Then invert onto a wire tray.

6. For the butter icing, cream the icing sugar, caramel and butter together in a large mixing bowl for at least 4-5 minutes. The addition of a teaspoon of boiling water will make the icing really soft if required.

7. Assembly: place one of the sponges onto a cake stand. Spread with half of the caramel and then pipe a third of the butter icing on top. Top with another of the apple-flavoured sponges and repeat the process on this layer, using the remaining caramel and another third of the butter icing. 8. Finally, place the remaining sponge on top of this and spread with the remaining butter icing. For a special look, garnish with three apples threaded with some dried beach twigs, giving the cake great height and drama.

Edward’s handy hint

I sometimes use the sponge part of this recipe to make some lovely flavoured cupcakes and then hollow out the centre, injecting with a little of the caramel and then icing with the toffee icing

French apple tart

This is a real Parisian-inspired recipe.

Serves 8

Ingredients

For the sweet pastry:

300g plain flour

150g butter

110g caster sugar

1 large egg

For the compote:

5 large cooking apples, peeled and diced

110g caster sugar

2 tbsp water

For the garnish:

3 or 4 Pink Lady apples

2 tbsp golden syrup

50g crushed hazelnuts

Method

1. Place the flour, butter, sugar and egg into an electric beater and mix for a couple of minutes until the pastry comes together. Wrap in cling film and allow to rest.

2. After at least an hour in the fridge, roll some of the pastry out on a floured work surface and use it to line a greased, 20cm, loose-bottomed flan ring.

3. Blind-bake the tart (See handy hint on left).

4. Place the diced apple into a medium-sized saucepan with the sugar and water. Put on a medium heat and bring to the boil for 3-4 minutes. Allow to cool down completely.

6. Assembly & garnish: Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Mark 4. Once the apple mixture is completely cooled down, pour this into the blind-baked pastry case, filling about three-quarters of the way up the tin. Peel and thinly slice the Pink Lady apples, and – as neatly and as symmetrically as you can manage – arrange them around the top of the tart.

7. Place the tart in the oven and cook for approximately 15 minutes. When the tart comes out of the oven, brush the entire surface with some heated golden syrup, ensuring that it is all nicely glazed, and then scatter with some roughly crushed hazelnuts.

Edward’s handy hint

To blind-bake: line the tartlet mould with a layer of parchment paper; fill with uncooked rice/dried lentil or chickpeas. Place this in the oven (180°C/350°F/Gas 4) for 15 minutes and then remove the rice etc and the paper and bake for a further 8 minutes. This leaves you with a perfect tartlet shell, and the sides will not fall in. If you wish, you could brush the pastry with a little egg white before rebaking to harden up the pastry and prevent it from becoming soggy later on.

Baked Apple Charlottes

The word charlotte is used for so many different types of dessert. In this authentic recipe, the charlotte is unmoulded, revealing the layers of lightly toasted bread filled with an apple purée.

Serves 6

Ingredients

6 cooking apples

3 tbsp sugar

4 tbsp water

¼ tsp cinnamon

50g sultanas

12 slices bread, buttered

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.

2. Select six individual pudding basins.

3. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples and then place them in a medium-sized saucepan with the sugar and water.

4. Cook them over a low heat until they are soft enough to mash into a rough purée. Beat the mixture and leave on one side to cool. Add in the cinnamon and sultanas.

5. Remove the crusts from the buttered bread and then cut each slice into four strips and use these to line the pudding basins. Don’t leave any gaps between the pieces – overlap them and press firmly, ensuring that there is room for the fruit filling.

6. When the apple and sultana purée has cooled sufficiently, fill the lined moulds with the mixture, retaining some of the leftover compote to garnish the cooked puddings later. Finally seal the top with overlapping strips of the remaining bread.

7. Place the puddings onto a flat tray and transfer to the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

8. Leave the pudding to settle in the basin for a couple of minutes after removing from the oven, then carefully invert it on to a warmed plate to serve. I normally top these with any leftover of the apple and sultana mixture.

9. Serve with some whipped cream, and if desired custard and/or butterscotch sauce.

Edward’s handy hint

It is vital to leave the puddings to rest when they come out of the oven, if not they will just collapse on the plate.

Photography by Harry Weir assisted by  Brian Clarke

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