I am always on the lookout for new cake recipes and when I saw this one, I thought it looked good.

It is an apple sponge made with dark soft brown sugar, grated apple and apple juice, topped with a toffee sauce and baked apple slices. I haven’t tasted it yet but have already been asked to make another two for The Earl Grey Tearoom so it must have been popular with the customers!

When I make cakes, I try to make as much as possible myself including the strawberry jam for the Victoria sponge and the parsnip crisps on the honeyed roast parsnip cake. So when the toffee apple cake called for apple crisps, I decided to make my own. This is when a Rayburn comes into its own, drying fruit at a low temperature. This works fine if you remember you have left them in the oven – unfortunately, one batch were left in overnight and ended up rather dark and a second batch went the same way this morning when I was trying to hurry! Luckily a third batch were fine and the cake was safely delivered this morning.

I hope I won’t be making that mistake again!