Introducing my favourite cookbook
One look and I went wow !
Ottolenghi’s Apple and Olive Oil Cake
I still remember going to the Wise Owl bookshop in Dun Laoghaire with Jackie to get an array of school books for Aoife and Éadaoin. Of course I head over to peruse the cookbooks to see what’s there. I was immediately taken by one, which had beautiful glossy pictures of exotic recipes. The more I looked at it the more I thought it was just brilliant. It was reduced from €33 to €23, but that was eighteen years ago, so still expensive for a chef I had never heard of. I put the book back and then proceeded to tell Jackie all about this amazing book. Thank god she just looked at me and said “Pat, go buy it”. I still think it’s wonderful, the recipes are to die for and those glossy pictures … .
Ingredients
80 g sultanas
60 ml water
280 g plain flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
1¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
120 ml olive oil
160 g caster sugar
½ vanilla pod
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 Bramley apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm dice
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 egg whites
maple icing:
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g light muscovado sugar
85ml maple syrup
220g cream cheese, at room temperature
Method
Grease a 20cm cake tin and line. Place the sultanas and water in a saucepan and simmer until the water has been absorbed.
Preheat the oven to 170°C fan. Sift the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Put the oil and sugar in the bowl and whisk to combine well. Slit the vanilla pod lengthways in half and scrape the seeds out into the bowl and add the eggs. Beat to get a smooth and thick mix. Fold in the diced apples, sultanas and lemon zest, then lightly fold in the sifted dry ingredients.
Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl, either by hand or with a mixer, until they have a soft meringue consistency. Fold them into the batter in 3 addition.
Pour into the lined tin and place in the oven. Bake for 1½ hours.
Beat together the butter, muscovado sugar and maple syrup until light and airy. Add the cream cheese and beat until the icing is totally smooth.
Using a palette knife, spread a layer of icing over the the cake. If you are brave you can cut the cake horizontally first and introduce a middle layer to spread the creamy icing over.
