Sometimes I buy apples, eat a few, and then leave the rest bit too long so they start to get a bit soft. But fear not. There are plenty of delicious recipes that use up apples. This recipe is quick, easy and only requires one bowl to mix all the ingredients (if you can’t be bothered to mix your dry ingredients separately first).

Brown butter adds a deeper flavour to this apple cake, creating an almost caramel element to it. You don’t have to use brown butter (you can replace with the same amount of melted butter), but I highly recommend that you do.

When making brown butter, I highly recommend make a large batch, and keeping it in the fridge in an air-tight container, so it’s available when a recipe calls for it. But, if that sounds like too much effort, I’ve given you the instructions below to make just enough brown butter for the cake.

The beautiful apples I got are from Eat Fresh, that are only available occasionally throughout the year. Eat Fresh are also getting their eggs back in stock soon too!

Ingredients

4 small apples
2 eggs
40 grams soft brown sugar
113 grams unsweetened applesauce
120 grams unsalted butter
150 grams plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 20cm springform cake tin.
2. Place the butter in a light-coloured saucepan (so you can see the colour change) over a medium heat. Allow the butter to melt and bubble, stirring occasionally. When you see more brown flecks than yellow, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
3. Peel, core and chop the apples into rough 0.5-1cm cubes. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until frothy. Add the butter and applesauce and stir until fully combined.
5. If using the one-bowl method, whisk in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt until just combined. If you don’t care to just use one bowl, then mix the dry ingredients in a small bowl first to distribute the baking powder, cinnamon and salt evenly among the flour. Then add to the egg and sugar mixture.
6. Gently stir through the apple cubes.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for 30 – 35 minutes (or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean).
8. Allow to cool in the tin for 15 – 20 minutes, then remove the cake from the tin and continue to cool on a wire rack.
9. Serve cake warm or at room temperature with whipped cream, ice cream or simply dusted with icing sugar.