Spiced Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting

Where to begin...This is my first layer cake, not just from this cook book but ever. I had to go out and buy two new 8inch tins as the black hole that has recently opened up in my house swallowed my last lot, along with many other things this week. I only bought two tins as apart from these cakes I have no need for four, so planned on making the mixture up in one batch and then just halving it out and baking two layers at a time.

This recipe seemed to slip me up a lot. Firstly I had to go out and get apple juice as didn't order any in, it somehow got missed off my shopping list. Then when trying to grate the Granny Smith apples I couldn't get them to grate finely as there was too much juice in the apples themselves and so had to grate them on a larger size and the use a knife to chop them up a little more. The apples, juice, spices and some of the brown sugar were all simmered together. The rest of the dry ingredients were the sieved together before the warm mixture was added.

Once the sponge batter was made I separated it out into two glass bowls, so I could make sure there was an equal amount in each, making it easier to then separate again into two tins at a time. This went into the oven for about 23 minutes on each batch, slightly more than the cook book states. Once all four layers had been baked they were left to cool. This was overnight as it got too late in the evening to make the meringue style icing and put the cake together.

The next evening I picked up where I left off and started on the icing. The first step is the mix the egg whites with the dark brown sugar over a bowl of simmering water, whisking it continuously until it thickened in volume and formed soft peaks. Then you had to remove from the heat and add the sugar, which is cubed, a few at a time. At this stage the mixture became very runny and I realised I did not whisk it enough over the heat at the beginning. To try and rectify this I added some more sugar and then put the mixture in the fridge to cool, hoping this would help it to set a little better.

It worked and the icing was thick enough to sandwich the four layers together and then ice the whole top and sides of the cake with a good covering. For this recipe I did not half the quantity of icing as, having never made a layer cake before, I wasn't sure how much was needed. The amount it made was exactly the right amount to cover the cake and give a generous filling between each layer. Once iced I decorated the top with some edible silver balls. Being four layers it made a massive sized cake, very tall.

The tasting came with a friend and tea. It tasted amazing. The frosting was not like the usual icing used on the cakes, it did actually have a glossy texture to it and wasn't as sweet as used brown sugar not icing sugar. The sponge has a subtle apple flavour, but it was the spices that were the more prominent flavour. Not the sort of cake I would usually made, prefer the more obvious sweet flavours but this is one I would happily make again. Think it would go down well at a family gathering myself.