Toffee Apple Cake

A delicious cake for the autumn time!

200g dates, roughly chopped
200ml milk
250g butter, softened
280g self raising flour
200g soft brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
1 tbsp mixed spice
2 tsp vanilla essence
3 small red apples
squeeze lemon juice
handful of toffees
icing sugar for dusting

Heat oven to 200C/gas 4.  Grease and line a 20cm x 30cm baking tray.  Put dates and milk into a saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Remove from the heat and set aside for 15 mins.

Whizz the date mixture to a smooth purée in a blender then scrape into a mixing bowl.  Tip in the butter, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, eggs, mixed spice and vanilla and set aside while you prepare the apples.

Quarter and core the apples and slice thinly, tossing in a little lemon juice.  Beat together the cake ingredients with an electric whisk until smooth then scrape into the baking tray.  Arrange the apple slices, overlapping in rows, on top of the cake.  Bake for 45-50 minutes until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean.  Leave to cool.

Put the toffees in a pan with a good splash of milk and gently melt, stirring, until runny.  To finish dust the cake with icing sugar then drizzle the toffee sauce over the cake.  Cut to serve.

YUMMY!

From a BBC Good Food magazine recipe.