BEREMEAL APPLE SULTANA and HONEY CAKE

Leonora dearest. I thought I must let you have my recipe for the beremeal cake which we shared last night with Algenon and Bunny. I have adapted the recipe from one I was given in a delightful shop The House of Beauly, in Beauly Scotland, just north of Inverness. This was where I first encountered this wonderful cereal which tastes so good and is so marvellous for entertaining friends on a wheat free diet.

I love the way you use the whole apple, core and all. You need to use butter (not margarine) and good dark molasses sugar. It does work best with separate cream of tartar and bicarb- but use baking powder (2 teaspoons) if you don’t have the separate ingredients. I use an 8” cake tin, well buttered- there’s no need to line with paper.

Sultanas 2 oz

Butter 2 ½ oz

Molasses cane sugar 3 ½ oz

Eggs 1

Beremeal  6oz

Cinnamon  1 teaspoon

Bicarbonate of soda 1 ½ teaspoon

Cream of tartar ½ teaspoon

Sea salt  ½ teaspoon

Desert or Cooking apple 7 oz –to the nearest whole apple

Honey about 1 tablespoon- less if using a sweet desert apple

First soak the sultanas for about 20 mins (or more) in warm water or apple juice. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and whisk in the sugar until it dissolves.  Chop the apple into chunks, add the butter/sugar mixture and whiz up in a food processor or blender- to a liquid, then blend in the egg. Mix together the beremeal, cream of tartar, bicarb of soda and salt and add to the liquid mixture with the drained sultanas and the honey. Give it a quick mix to turn into a soft dough then put into the cake tin.

I use the top (roasting) oven of the aga, so I put the cake tin into the aga cake baker but you can use a conventional oven at gas mark 4, 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C.  It takes about 1 hour 15 mins to cook- it should feel quite springy when its ready. After I take it out of the oven I warm a little honey and drizzle it onto the top.

I am so looking forward to hearing about the cupcakes you making for your friend’s baby shower- I don’t suppose you’ll have any over, but if you do Algenon  and  I will be most happy to taste them.

Bea