Inaugural apple bake

Last summer I had two apple trees from which I made numerous apple crumbles, pies and cakes, with some left over to freeze, and we enjoyed apple crumble into the new year. Fast forward to this spring, I have developed a sensitivity to gluten. I was pretty ok with this, realising that I eat very little pasta and bread day to day, and it didn’t need much adjustment to my usual diet. Until the apples began to ripen. Oh, and we had moved house in the meantime so I now have three very large apple trees!

That is a very long preamble to explain why I am sharing my experiments of baking a gluten free apple cake. This is my first attempt, and it went really well, even meeting with the approval of four teenagers.

Ingredients:
175g softened butter
250g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp almond extract
2 tsp baking powder
250g Doves Farm gluten free plain white flour
170g apples, peeled and chopped
130g chopped dates

Method:
- Heat oven to 180 degrees centigrade, grease and line a 22cm square baking tin
- Beat together the butter and sugar, I use a stand mixer
- Beat in the 4 eggs and almond oil
- Mix in the baking powder and flour
- Finally mix in the fruit
- Cook for approximately 40mins until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean

I love to eat apple cake warm from the oven, but it is equally lovely when left to cool.