Fallen Apple Cake

 My elderly neighbour and I often chat over the low garden fence separating our gardens, discussing weather and families and sharing garden produce. There is a useful nail poking out of one fence post which doubles up as a hook on which to hang various bags so either side can haul it up without the unnecessary work of going around to the front door. 

Bags and buckets overflowing with windfall apples from her fertile apple trees are swopped with tubs of blackberries foraged from the fields, or occasionally runner beans from my dad's allotment. Recipes and sometimes bottles of wine are shared too. "Something for you on the nail" announces the text, if the bag contains an item that may not stand up to a cloudburst or sudden gust of wind. We shared this recipe too, an excellent way to use up both eating and cooking apples and quite forgiving if the cupboard is bare of an ingredient. Swop spelt for normal wholemeal flour, brown sugar for white, cinnamon and ginger for fennel seeds, prunes for other dried fruits. 

Fallen Apple Cake

225g wholemeal spelt flour

2tsp baking powder

100g brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

50g nuts such as walnuts or hazelnuts

20g prunes (or raisins/sultanas)

200g eating apples, chopped

200g unsweetened apple puree 

75ml rapeseed oil

Preheat your oven to 160 degree (fan) grease and line a 1lb loaf tin. Mix the apple puree with the rapeseed oil in one bowl and separately mix all the dry ingredients together. Once the dry ingredients are mixed, add the oil and apple puree and stir until just combined. Tip into the prepared loaf tin and bake for one hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Will last 3-4 days if wrapped and kept cool.