Last week I was sitting in my living room mulling over what type of cake I was going to make for one of my housemate’s upcoming birthday. It can sometimes be a challenge to dream up new recipes for this blog, especially if it’s a layer cake. I remembered that another friend really likes this Biscoff Spread. I have no idea how they produce it, but it’s made from these Lotus biscuits. Basically, tastes like a caramel cookie but with the texture of smooth peanut butter. It’s absolutely delicious, both on toast or just straight from the jar.  From there, I decided that it would adapt nicely from my nutella/peanut butter icing recipes. So with a biscuit icing, I needed to pair it with a cake recipe. Cake of death and biscuits would be too rich, and vanilla cake just a bit bland. I decided that since it was almost the end of October, I should make something that had the warm spiced flavours of autumn. So I decided to take my apple bundt cake recipe and turn it into a layer cake.

The cake turned out really well! The apple cake adapted well to a two layer 8″ round cake and stayed moist. I loved the generous amount of apple in this cake and the walnuts almost tasted caramelised. The cinnamon and other spices had a really wonderful flavour. I could eat this cake happily on its own with no icing, but the Biscoff Icing really suited it as well. One flatmate of mine told me it was the perfect fall afternoon treat after returning from a cold, blustery day.

Biscoff – the next best thing since Nutella and peanut butter.

The Biscoff icing tasted like, well, Biscoff spread! But the flavour was slightly milder and it was so fluffy and dreamy. Any substance with the consistency of peanut butter can probably be adapted into icing using the recipe below.

Happy baking!

Apple Cake

Ingredients

• 4 medium sized cooking apples (mine weighed ~400g peeled)
• 100g/1 cup chopped walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped PLUS ~50g walnuts very finely chopped (for the top)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp other spices (e.g. cinnamon, allspice, ginger, cloves, nutmeg etc – I did 1/4 tsp each of cloves, allspice and nutmeg)
• 375g/ 3 cups plain/all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda/bicarb of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 400g/2 cups white sugar
• 300ml/1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325F/160C. Butter and flour two 8″ round cake tins. Line the bottoms with rounds baking parchment. Set aside.
2. Peel, core and dice the apples into approximately 1/2 inch cubes. Mix together the apples, walnuts, 2 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tbsp of flour. Set aside.
3. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and remainder of the spices. Set aside.
4. Using an electric mixer, beat together the sugar, eggs and oil until light in colour and almost doubled in volume.
5. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fold in the apple mixture.
6. Spread the batter evenly between the two pans and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
7. Cool on a wire rack. After 10 minutes, run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it and turn out onto the wire rack to cool completely. Ice and fill as desired.