Christmas Apple Cake

Originally an Italian recipe for an apple and walnuts cake, which I thought was just asking for a Christmasy update :) very easy to make, works every time. And being Italian, it's really quite healthy.

...Right?

Ingredients:

• 1kg of apples
• 1 glass of dark brown sugar
• half glass of walnuts
• 1 glass of raisins, sultanas, dried cranberries.. or whatever else you want to put in :) you can add candied orange peel, finely diced dates, dried apricots, prunes etc.
• 3 eggs
• 2 glasses of plain flour
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp of ground cloves
• 1 drop of almond extract
• 1 drop of orange extract

1. Peel the apples; remove cores. Dice apples into more or less 1x1x1cm cubes.

2. Add sugar, spices, almond and orange extracts, nuts and dried fruits to the apples in a large bowl, mix well together, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for an hour.

3. Beat the eggs and add them to the apples. Add flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. The mix should be very thick. Make sure you mix in the flour very thoroughly - it could take a while. It will mix with the eggs and apple juices to for just enough sticky pastry to glue all the chunky pieces together.

4. Put into a cake tin and bake at 180°C for about an hour.



When it bakes, it fills the kitchen with the most delicious christmasy smell - not an overpowering one though, which most chrismas cakes and pies seem to have these days, but a fruity, fresh, light smell of continental Christmas :)