Apple cake

T was born and brought up in this house with large garden including the big apple tree, as in photo below.

The tree was substantial enough to support a swing. See below J at about 10 months with T's mum who he called Granne (Anne with 'g r' in front).

Every autumn the tree was harvested for its cooking apples. And every November 5th

(Gr)Anne would bake a cake with the apples known by the family as Bonfire Cake.

For many years I had a copy of the recipe, spreading further copies around friends as it was unusual and delicious.

Last Autumn we were briefly inundated with windfall apples from friends. Time to get baking. Could I find the recipe? Hell, no.

So we invented our own. It's definitely lacking some of (Gr)Anne's ingredients, as she included dried fruit and you couldn't distinguish the apple pieces. But we think ours still tastes pretty good. J likes it slightly warm with a cup of tea, and T likes it as a pudding with custard.

Apple Cake

Ingredients as for basic Victoria sponge;

4oz butter (I use cheap unsalted supermarket own-brand not margarine)
4oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour
2 eggs
2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 medium Bramley cooking apples or 3 desert apples.
Demerara sugar for topping

Blend the butter and caster sugar until pale and creamy. Mix the bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon into the flour and then gradually mix the flour and beaten eggs into the butter/sugar. Peel and core the apples. Chop into sugar cube size bits. Fold into the cake mix until evenly distributed.
Grease a 10"x9" cake tin and spoon the mixture in. Sprinkle with a generous topping of demerara sugar. Bake Gas 4 (350 F) for 20-25 minutes or until the top is golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cut into squares.

We've also made this with pears instead of apples. It's a bit 'wetter' and has a milder flavour. The quantity of bicarb might seem high but it helps raise the mixture like a sponge cake as the fruit makes it moist.
Yesterday my brain was thinking 'sponge cake mixture' as I prepared things and I absent mindedly greased my 2 shallow round Victoria sponge cake tins instead of the deeper rectangular one. I'd also started spooning in the mixture before my brain clicked into gear, so decided to carry on. It turned out well, and nobody minded the triangles of cake instead of squares!

Stiffness diary
Wake in the night and find my neck really stiff and throat painful. Sleep for 12 hours and struggle to get out of bed. Find it painful to bend to put socks on.
Take a painkiller.
Better by 11.30 am, background aches only.
12.30. Shopping trip to supermarket. T pushes trolley. Feel fine, only slight ache in upper back
3pm Rooting around in cupboard lifting out photo albums
4pm Legs stiffening
Typing on PC/cooking
6pm. Shoulder joints and left elbow painful.