My brother in law gave me some homegrown apples. He told me its 3 different types of apples. I had a look and had the feeling its golden delicious, granny smith and red delicious.

Some of the apples had skins looks like granny smith, some golden delicious and red delicious. A few apples had half green and the other half red. Since it’s his birthday, I made him this cake using his homegrown apples and added basil to it as part of my experiment to see what the outcomes of the flavour.

I am glad that my experiment did turn out great taste for everyone love it and had extra piece plus pack home for next day morning tea. I had two big pieces and the next day; I even cut some pieces for friends to taste.

The cake is buttery, moist, apples semi-sweet and basil balance of the sweetness and semi-sweet with a hint of intrigue herb flavour to finished in my taste bud. Top with more apple slices cooked in apple cider vinegar, brown sugar cinnamon. Glazed with lemon and treacle syrup.

Ingredients

450 g butter, softened
450 g self-raising flour
400 g caster sugar 
300 g thickened cream
5 large eggs
2 green apples, pureed with 100 g thickened cream 
6 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tsp baking powder
2 Tsp vanilla essence

Decoration

3 green apples, slice thinly 
60 ml apple cider vinegar
3 Tbs treacle syrup
2 Tbs brown sugar
1 Tbs lemon juice, warm up to mix with treacle syrup
1/4 Tsp cinnamon
a few strawberries, for decoration

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line a square baking pan 10″. Blitz 2 apples and basil with 100 ml thicken cream. Set aside until needed.

Beat butter, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Then add flour, baking powder, 200 ml thicken cream and lemon juice; stirring until combined.

Spoon 4 large spoonful of batter into another bowl and add in the apple and basil puree. Stir to combine well. Now take 2 large spoons of the vanilla butter pour in the middle of pan. Then spoon equal amount of apple basil batter on top of the vanilla batter. Repeat till you have vanilla batter on top.

When you do it won’t look good; uneven. That’s ok but when its cooked through you can see the lines of green and yellow vanilla. Next smooth the top. Gives a couple of gentle knocks on the bench, shake, and tilt a bit to get it cover the corner, and to get rid of bubbles.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave in oven with door close and switch off oven for 30 minutes. Then cool further in the pan for 10 mins before turning over to a cake base.

Warm lemon juice and add treacle for easy to spread on top of cake. Set aside another 30 minutes, allow treacle to seep in. Meanwhile, toss the slices apples in brown sugar, apple cider and cinnamon. Microwave 30 seconds 3 times – about 1 to 1.5 minutes until apples is cooked and softened.

Now decorate by lining apples in 4 rows and cut some strawberries into halves and place in the middle and at the 4 corners. Serve it with brewed coffee and tea.

 
Note: You may need more or less time as oven temperature vary. I like my cake to be buttery, moist and with apples and basil. You can omit basil and make it just with Granny Smith and sour cream or thicken cream or double cream. You can use any fruits if you like.

https://helenscchin.com/2019/02/25/apple-basil-cake/

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