From 1st – 7th December 2014, the Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Charity together with Homepride will be hosting a BIG Bake, a national fundraising event to help sick children in hospitals and hospices across the UK. I was asked if I would like to create a recipe of my choice to help raise awareness of this wonderful event, and of course I said yes I mean a chance to bake and eat a cake in support of a children’s charity – well they had me at BIG Bake really!!
In honour of Wallace and Gromit, I have made an apple and wensleydale cheese cake – yes an actual sponge cake filled with apple and cheese! I know that Wallace is a big cheese fan “I’m just crackers about cheese!” . The only wensleydale cheese I could find at my local supermarket had cranberries mixed in, which worked fine with the apple in the cake, but this is optional and if you can get some without, then that will work just as well. I added a crumble topping to my cake because I like apple cake and I also love apple crumble, and I thought it would add some extra texture to my cake.
Now the sceptics among you, like some of the Mum’s at my baby and toddler group, may be thinkign that adding cheese to a cake is just wrong. However, let me reassure you that it is not and it works and adds a creaminess and a slight tang to the cake which is really very nice. As Wallace would say, “Cracking good job” and I urge you to try it for yourself.
- **FOR THE CAKE**
- 250g unsalted butter
- 250g muscavado sugar
- 250g self raising flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 5 eggs
- 2 medium eating apples, grated
- 100g wensleydale cheese, crumbled
- **FOR THE CRUMBLE TOPPING**
- 25g unsalted butter
- 25g self raising flour
- 2 tbsp demerara sugar
- 1-2 tsp cinnamon (depending how spicy you like it)
- Grease and line a 6inch loose botomed baking tin
- pre heat the oven to 180oC / 160oC (fan)
- Cream the butter and sugar together for about 5 mins until pale and soft
- Add all of the eggs and a spoonful of the fllour and beat well for a few minutes until light and airy
- Fold in the remaining flour and spices
- Then carefully fold in the grated apple and cheese
- Pour into the cake tin
- In a clean bowl, rub the flour and butter together to make fine-ish breadcrumbs
- Stir in the cinnamon and sugar
- Pour over the top of the cake batter
- Place in the oven and cook for approx 75 minutes until cooked right through. If it looks like it might be going too brown, cover with foil
- Once cooked, remove and allow to cool before removing from the tin
- Enjoy with a cuppa and a nice dollop of clotted cream would go down very nicely with it.
Seriously cracking cake and it is something I will make again for sure!
When it comes to cake making, I have learnt to stick to recipes that work time and time again, but alter them slightly to accommodate a new flavour. I have been using the same recipe for my sponge cakes and cupcakes for years and thats is always:
4 eggs
200g each of butter, sugar and flour
(if using cocoa powder I subtract 25-50g of flour and add the cocoa instead)
This has never failed and if you look through the recipes on my blog, you will see that almost all of them use this as their basis. It is also important to NOT open the oven until at least 20 minutes has passed to check on them, this will stop the cakes from deflating.
I was asked to create a recipe for the Wallace and Gromit Big Bake free of charge. For more information about this event please find all the details below.
I am linking this up to the Aga Cooker Recipes for October
and
Alison
I bet that was a lovely combination of flavour, Wallace and Grommit would approve
Kirsty Hijacked By Twins
Wow Jenny, this sound so delicious! I love Wensleydale cheese and in cake it must be so good!!! x #recipeoftheweek
Jenny Paulin
thank you Kirsty, the flavours worked well together xx
TheBoyandMe
Absolutely fabulous, another one of your inventive cake creations but it does look and sound wonderful.
Steph @MisplacedBrit
What a fantastic idea! I can imagine those flavors were perfect together 🙂 Love a good Wensleydale!