Devon Apple Cake - Award Winning Recipe

This is a regular autumnal warmer in our house that is dead simple to make and uses up at least one or two of your surplus cooking apples at this time of year.  I won second prize with this cake in the local Village Show in early September.  Yes, I forgot to take a picture of it when it was whole - too eager to eat it.  It's a basic sponge cake and then has a lovely crumbly sugar and cinnamon topping.

Ingredients:

225g cooking apples (peeled, cored and chopped any size)
juice of half a lemon
225g plain flour
7.5ml baking powder
115g butter
165g sugar - I've used caster, soft light or dark brown - all good
1 beaten egg
30-45ml milk
2.5ml ground cinnamon

1 - Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Grease and line an 18cm round cake tin. **

2 - Toss the apple with the lemon juice and set aside.  Sift flour and baking powder then rub in butter until it resembles breadcrumbs (I throw this in the food processor)

3 -  Stir in 115g of the brown sugar (keeping 50g aside), the apple and egg and mix well adding enough milk to form a soft dropping consistency.

4 - Transfer batter to tin.  Mix the remaining 50g sugar with cinnamon - sprinkle this over the cake mixture.  Bake for 45- 50 mins until golden.  Leave to cool for 10 mins in the tin before transferring to wire rack and your mouth.

**I love these Lakeland cake tin liners for lining tins:

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/baking-parchment-cake-tin-liners/F/keyword/cake+liners/product/5550_5551