Eccles cake

A new take on the traditional pastry, this cake will go down well on any occasion

  • Prep:40 mins
    Cook:1 hrs 25 mins
  • Serves 10
  • Easy

Nutrition per serving

  • kcal 571
  • fat 27g
  • saturates 16g
  • carbs 76g
  • sugars 53g
  • fibre 2g
  • protein 7g
  • salt 0.8g

Ingredients

  • 250g pack butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
  • 250g soft light brown sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 large eggs
  • 100g plain flour
  • 250g self-raising flour
  • 100g buttermilk
  • 2 eating apples, peeled, cored and diced to about 1cm pieces
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • ¼ tsp ground cloves
  • zest 1 lemon
  • 2 tbsp melted butter
  • 2 tbsp soft light brown sugar
  • 85g currants
  • 85g raisins
  • 50g mixed peel
  • 85g icing sugar, sifted
  • zest and juice 1 lemon
  • a few sugar cubes, roughly crushed

Method

  1. Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease and line a deep 20cm cake tin with baking parchment. Mix together the filling ingredients and set aside.

  2. Put butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and whisk until pale. Beat in the eggs, then fold in the flours, buttermilk and apples. Spoon half the mixture into the tin. Scatter over filling, leaving a 2.5cm clear border all around the edge. Spoon remaining mixture on top, starting by dolloping round the edges, then moving into the middle. Bake for 1 hr 25 mins or until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Cool in the tin.

  3. Mix the icing sugar with enough lemon juice to make a runny-ish icing. Remove cake from the tin, drizzle over the icing, then scatter with crushed sugar cubes and lemon zest.

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