Recipe 145 – Baked Apple Lemon Sponge

I felt the need to bake again late this afternoon after baking my bread this morning.  With the joint of pork slow-roasting in the oven,  I though a pudding would be in order, so I went straight to the Hot Puddings & Pies Section of the book.  I didn’t really want anything that would take too long, but in future I will read through the whole recipe before I start them.  I thought this one took 30 minutes, but it didn’t – it had to have another 45 minutes after the initial 30.  Oh well, the pork was left in a little longer which didn’t do it any harm at all, it was a slow roast after all.  Looking through the recipe, the pudding appears to be in two parts, the bottom part with the apples and the top part consisting of sponge cake mixture to go on top.  It sounded delicious.

Mary states that this pudding is similar to an old-fashioned Eve’s Pudding – I can remember the contestants in last year’s Great British Bake Off baking one of those, hopefully I wouldn’t find it too difficult – after all I did have all the instructions on how to bake it, they didn’t!

My second oven was put on at 140°C to preheat and a heavy baking tray was put into the oven too to preheat.  For this recipe you required a 27 x 18cm (10.5″ x 7″) deep ovenproof dish.  I think I took nearly all my tins out of the cupboard to only find out I didn’t have one that size.  In the end I decided to use one of my ceramic oval dishes (just don’t look to close at the end photo as you can see the words ‘Red Onions’ written around the top of the dish.  I love these dishes and they do seem to bake things very well.

The first step was to prepare the base.  Into a large bowl went 300ml single cream, 6 tablespoons lemon curd (I knew there was an unopened jar in the cupboard which was luckily still in date), 2 level tablespoons of caster sugar and 1 heaped teaspoon of plain flour (which didn’t seem very much – I’m assuming it was used for thickening the sauce).  These were beaten together using my balloon whisk until the mixture was smooth.  A quick dip in with my little finger for a taste – it was lovely, as usual I could have eaten it just as it was.  The next part of the base was to peel, core and very thinly slice 750g cooking apples.  Mary does suggest using a mandolin cutter or the thin slicing disc in the food processor.  Although I am the proud owner of both of these, I was thinking of the amount of washing up I was producing, so decided on slicing the apples thinly with a knife, which although time-consuming wasn’t too bad.    The sliced apples had to be mixed into the cream mixture and spooned into the baking dish and levelled.

It was then onto step two – the topping.  2 large eggs, 175 self-raising flour, 100g caster sugar, 100g softened butter, 1 level teaspoon baking powder and 2 tablespoons milk were put into a mixing bowl and beaten together.  I admit that I did get my electric mixer out for this one!  They had to be beaten until smooth and although my mixture was smooth, I was surprised how thick it was, even though my butter had been softened.  I spooned the mixture over the top of the apples and gently levelled it off with a palette knife.  Before going into the oven the top had to be sprinkled with a couple of tablespoons of demerara sugar.

The dish was put into the oven onto the baking tray for 30 minutes until golden brown.  It was at this stage I realised it still had to bake for another 45 minutes, as you had to remove it from the oven and ccver the top with foil.  After 45 minutes I had a quick peek to find the top had risen and the sponge sprang back when lightly pressed.

It was a delicious dessert, you had the sponge topping and then underneath a lovely lemony sauce with the apples in.  I’m glad it served 6 as it meant that both my husband and I could have another piece the next day.  The children liked it too, although my daughter thought it a bit sickly – but she did have extra cream on hers!

 

 

3rd February 2013