Chunky apple and orange cake

They say you can’t compare apples and oranges. I guess I can see why. Apples are hard and have thin skins you can usually eat; oranges and soft and you can’t eat the skin (at least not raw). Apples can be red or green or pink, whereas oranges are usually... well, orange. Apples are famously cooked in pies, and as far as I’m aware, I’ve never come across orange pie. (I might be merely ignorant, of course.)

The good thing here is that they – whoever they are – have never said that apples and oranges can’t be used in a recipe together... and I got proof of this from Google, which came up (only eventually) with a recipe for a cake that seemed easy AND doable AND tasty AND good-looking… AND, as it turned out, a blogger’s mum’s recipe. Evidently other people before me have discovered that apples and oranges go rather nicely – in fact quite deliciously - together in some things, like cake.

Boy, was it good. I reduced the quantity of the ingredients and replaced half the sugar with Splenda, and then halved the quantity of the remaining sugar so that I only used 1/4 cup in all.

Usually baking with just Splenda makes the cake a bit heavier in texture than otherwise – at least that’s been my experience so far. But this cake, although it seemed a tad sticky/moist at first, sort of fluffed itself out when it cooled, so that the cake part was nice and light and spongy. The apple chunks in it kept the cake moist for three days, and it smelt and tasted just as good as fresh, when it was warmed up in the microwave before serving.

It really was a delicious cake and I managed to use up three apples and four small oranges – which had been my intention in the first place.

Recipe for: Chunky apple and orange cake



Ingredients:

3 medium apples
1 tsp cinnamon
2-1/2 tbsp unrefined demerara sugar
2 tsp orange zest

1-3/4 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Splenda
1/2 cup orange juice (from four small oranges)
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
3 tbsp chopped mixed nuts (I used walnuts and almonds)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease a round loose-bottomed (or springform) 7" pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon, sugar and orange zest. Set aside for 10 minutes.



2. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.



3. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla.



4. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones,



then add eggs, one at a time.



Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

5. Pour half of batter into prepared pan.



6. Spread half of apples over it.



7. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Sprinkle the nuts around the apple chunks.



8. Bake for about an hour (check after 45 minutes), or until a tester comes out clean and the cake has pulled away slightly from the pan.



9. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.



Serve warm.