Chopped apple cake

My great grandmother referred to this as apple bread. I love that about her. I also love that nearly ninety per cent of her recipes in her box are for baked goods. This cake is wonderfully simple and takes no more time to make than it does your oven to pre-heat. In the future, I plan to experiment with some other flours and sugar, but this morning I wanted this cake just as Grandma enjoyed it.

Credit: Ashley Rodriguez

• serves

  4

• prep

  15 minutes

• cook

  1:10 hour

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups flour
• ¾ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ cup oil (I used canola and walnut)
• 2 eggs
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 2 cups peeled and chopped apples (about 2 medium)

Cooling time 20 minutes

Instructions

Preheat oven to 175°C. Butter a loaf pan and set aside.

Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in a medium bowl. Add the oil, eggs and vanilla and stir until combined. Fold in the apples. Scrape batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for about 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Let cool 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Let cool until just warm then slice.

Recipe from Not Without Salt by Ashley Rodriguez, with photographs by Ashley Rodriguez.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.