Mutterings and Dorset Apple cake

Your supper's nearly ready.  I've a-got
Some teaties here a-doen in the pot;
I wish wi' all my heart I had some meat.
I got a little ceake too, here, a-beaken o'n
Upon the vier.  'Tis done by this time though
He's nice an' moist; vor when I were-a meakin o'n
I stuck some bits ov apple in the dough.

William Barnes (Dorset poet)

This is an extract from a poem dated 1835, entitled "Father Come Home"  by William Barnes, the famous Dorset dialect poet.  Here is a mention of an early Dorset apple cake - although I think it was a dough-type cake and not the sort we make today.

We are visiting friends tomorrow, and I have a thousand apples needing to be used up, so Dorset Apple Cake sprang to mind.  Here is the recipe I used, from Dorset Food by Jo Draper.

SPICY DORSET APPLE CAKE

4 oz butter or margarine
4 oz caster or brown sugar
8 oz flour, S-R or adjusted
1 lb cooking apples
1 1/2 teaspoons mixed spice or a mixture to your taste
3 oz currants or sultanas
2 eggs

Rub the margarine and the flour together, add the spices, sugar, peeled, cored and sliced apples, currants and the beaten eggs.  Put the mixture in a large greased cake tin (10 inch round or 8" square) and bake at gas mark 6 (425F, 218C) for 35 - 45 minutes.  The large amount of apple makes the cake a little fragile, so leave in the tin for 5 minutes or more before removing.  If you do not have a large cake tin, use two smaller cake tins and reduce the cooking time a little.

In the past I have arranged sliced apple around the top of the cake, but these can scorch so may need a covering of foil if this happens towards the end of the cooking time.  Good as a hot pudding too, with cream or custard. . .

Mine is still baking in the oven, and I will include a photo later - here it is before it went in:

And after it came out.  It might now, actually, be a couple of slices smaller!  It is SCRUMMY!!!  I shall take slices tomorrow, rather than 2/3 of a cake . . .  Cunning eh?

Photos also of last night's quick pizza (excuse the battered old tin plate - one my OH brought back from t'other side of the world, and still useful!):

I was able to use my lactose-free cheese on the top.

Lastly, getting the most from the slow-cooker - here it is helping along a 2nd proving of a little loaf:

It was still nice and toasty from cooking the jacket spuds all afternoon long.