Apple tea cake

By: Jim McDougall, Stefano de Pieri
From: Nuovo Mondo
Makes: 15
Photographer: Alan Benson

Stefano: This is one we have used in the de Pieri family since forever. This is a modified recipe to suit Australian ingredients. This may seem unbelievable, but Italian flour and yeast translated into Australian equivalent quantities just made a mess of this cake. I turned it, as usual, to my mother-in-law, who played around with it until we got this recipe right. But, for me it’s not quite the same, which goes to show that it is not easy to recreate a flavour memory and general impressions from one place to another. So, if anything, it goes to show that we are always forced to modify and adapt our experiences.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
150g	unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
200g	caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
3	free-range eggs
50ml	grappa or brandy
200g	self-raising flour, sifted
2	granny smith apples

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Lightly grease a 23 cm ring cake tin with butter and dust with a little flour.
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar for a few minutes until pale and creamy. Beat in the eggs, then add the grappa and finally the sifted flour. Pour the mixture into the cake tin, making sure it is evenly distributed.
Peel the apples, remove the cores and slice thinly. If you do this ahead of time, sprinkle a little sugar on the apples to prevent them from discolouring. Arrange the sliced apples over the top of the cake batter in the tin, pushing them into the batter a little.
Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Cut into slices and serve.