Spiced Apple and Buttermilk Cake

When you need cake (or to satisfy a baking urge), but don't want to switch the oven on.

Hello everyone! I hope wherever you are the sun is shining quite as brightly as it is here today. I have been out for a walk and it is GLORIOUS. I am back in the house now and working but also making the most of it while I can by basking in front of an east facing window. Bliss.

Before I get onto today’s recipe here is one of my regular nudges for all new subscribers. There are a series of posts right at the start of this newsletter which will give you a great deal of advice on how to choose a pressure cooker, how to get started, important do’s and don’t’s. It is well worth reading these as they do contain a lot of information, which supplement everything you will find in my books. I am going to be updating some of these posts in due course and have more to add too, but there is more than enough there to get you started. If you have subscribed but you are yet to decide on which pressure cooker to buy, then this is a good place to start:

There is a fair bit of information in the comments too, including just today, some advice on choosing between electric and stove top.

So onto today’s recipe and I am baking - or at least pressure baking - again! Yesterday I realised that the house was finally empty of all Christmas confectionary. There was a fair bit. Packets of Bageriet biscuits, bought for me by Shariq as he knows they are my absolute favourite, hoarded in my room and eaten with black coffee most mornings since early December. The jam filled lebkuchen, bought and eaten endlessly from September through to January. The multiple panettone and pandoro, the gifts (huge bars of Lindt gold, salted caramels, Bendicks Bittermints, chocolate oranges and Lindt reindeer, rose and violet creams, thick rounds of chocolate filled with marzipan and highly alcoholic cherry, plum or apricot jams, no idea what these are called), French fruit jellies and nougat. All gone, apart from some maron glaces, a present from Lilly and eked out.

For the first Christmas I can remember, there was absolutely no Christmas baking achieved this year besides the Christmas pudding, made in a hurry. I had intended to supervise a lot of baking. We were going to make stollen and stollen bites, gingerbread, numerous biscuits and cakes. Chocolate salamis, orangettes and florentines, divvied up - some as presents, most for us. Black bread and blinis. But it turned out that supervising the baking was even more exhausting than doing it myself. So much so that even the thought of it was enough to send me straight back to bed for a nap. So absolutely nothing was made and disappointment all round. Adam and I have big plans for next year.

So yes, no immediately edible sweet things in the house. And today for the first time I felt I could move beyond what was needed in terms of cooking and into the realms of what we wanted so thought perhaps I might make something sweet. I haven’t posted many sweet recipes in this newsletter. I am not sure why as there are plenty of things I make regularly, using the pressure cooker. Today’s offering is a cake which, truth be told, takes only a little less time in the pressure cooker as it does in the oven. But, lack of Christmas baking notwithstanding, I am very conscious of the fact that my fuel bills have gone up a lot in the last month and I will only switch the oven on if it is going to be multiple use. The pressure cooking might not be much faster, but it is much more efficient, energy wise, if a single cake is the only thing you want to bake.

Anyway, here is a spiced and caramelised apple cake for you. Made oh so tender by the addition of buttermilk. It is small - just 18cm diameter - but I thought it would last at least a couple of days. No, already gone. You can serve it as a cake, but also hot, like an upside down pudding. Just leave it in the tin, covered in foil until you are ready to serve and it will keep warm while you use the pressure cooker to make some custard (of course Birds or Ambrosia or maybe just some pouring cream will do just as well).

A couple of notes:

Choice of tin. When pressure cooking cakes and puddings, it is generally better to use a tin which does not have a loose bottom, because the steam can push through. You don’t want this because it will add extra moisture and you might end up with - horror of horrors! - a soggy bottom. A way round this is to line the outside of your tin with foil. For non sticking purposes I line the inside with a round of bake-o-glide (you can use baking parchment/greaseproof paper or cake release spray), but it isn’t strictly necessary will this one - all that butter does mean it should come away cleanly.

Buttermilk. I love. If you don’t have any, you can use yogurt thinned out with a little milk, or milk thickened with a teaspoon of lemon juice. They will all have a similar tenderising effect.

Spiced Apple Cake

For the apples:

25g butter

25g sugar (I used a mixture of soft dark brown and demerara, use whatever you have)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

pinches of allspice and clove

1-2 eating apples, depending on size, peeled, cored and sliced into wedges (I used 1)

For the batter:

125g plain flour (I used wholemeal spelt)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp each ground allspice and cloves

75g butter

100g caster or soft light brown sugar

2 eggs (the cake is forgiving, you can use medium or large)

75ml buttermilk

First prepare your tin. Line (or not, it is up to you), then rub the butter over the base and a little way up the sides. Mix the spices with the sugar and sprinkle over the butter. Arrange the apples over the base.

Put the flour, raising agents and spices in a bowl with a generous pinch of salt and mix thoroughly. Cream the butter and sugar together until soft and relatively well aerated (I use a stand mixer, but use what you will). Add one of the eggs with a couple of tablespoons of the flour mixture and combine. Follow with the remaining egg and flour, then fold in the buttermilk. Pour over the apples and spread evenly.

Take a piece of baking parchment and fold a pleat into it. Fix over the cake tin. Add freshly boiled water to the base of your pressure cooker - 2 cm is plenty. Add a trivet and the cake tin. Set on a high heat until plenty of steam is being produced, then turn down and cover. Leave to steam without pressure for 10 minutes, then lock the lid in place and bring up to high pressure.

Adjust the heat so it is just high enough to maintain the pressure, then cook for 12 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave for 5 minutes, before gradually releasing the remaining pressure. (For most pressure cookers this means short bursts. Some, eg WMF, have a slide mechanism which can be pulled back slowly and steadily).

Turn the cake out on to plate and serve hot or cold. Leave in the tin, well wrapped to keep hot if you are making custard. Alternatively, you can make the custard first and keep warm in a saucepan. Just make sure you whisk regularly.

There shall be a “Last Night’s Dinner” post, hitting your inboxes tomorrow - and it will be another non typical pressure cooker use recipe, cooked with Adam. I’m off to have some of the leftovers now. If you have enjoyed reading this one, please take a moment to hit the heart, it makes a big difference to visibility. And please share with anyone who would like it - it is free for all to read! Thank you!