Apple Cake with Maple Icing

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Apple and Olive Oil Cake with Maple Icing

80g raisins or sultanas
4 tablespoons water
280g plain flour
½ a teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
½ a teaspoon baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
120ml olive oil
160g caster sugar
½ a vanilla pod or vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2-3 bramley apples, peeled and diced into 1cm cubes
grated zest of a lemon
2 egg whites
icing sugar for dusting (optional)

maple icing
100g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
100g light muscovado sugar
85ml maple syrup
220g cream cheese, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to170°C. Grease a 20-cm springform cake pan and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper. Place the raisins and water in a medium saucepan and simmer over low heat until all of the water has been absorbed. Leave to cool. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, and baking soda and set aside.
Put the oil and sugar in a bowl. Split the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the bowl, or add vanilla extract. Whisk the oil, sugar and vanilla together (you could do this with an electric mixer with a paddle attachment). Gradually add the eggs to the mixture and mix until smooth and thick. Mix in the diced apples, sultanas and lemon zest, then lightly fold in the sifted dry ingredients.

Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl, either by hand or with a mixer, until they have a soft meringue consistency. Gently fold them into the batter in 2 additions, trying to maintain as much air as possible. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the surface. Bake for 1 hour 15 mins to 1 hour 30 mins or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the plan. When completely cooled, remove the cake from the tin and cut in half horizontally using a large serrated knife.  You might need to shave a bit off the top half to level it.

To make the icing, beat together the butter and maple syrup and muscovado sugar until light and airy. You can do this by hand, or preferably, in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Next add in the cream cheese and beat until it’s totally smooth with the whisk attachment.

Using the a spatula, spread a layer of icing 1 cm thick (half of the recipe) over the bottom half of the cake. Carefully place the top half on it. Spoon the rest of the icing on top, and dust with icing sugar or some cinnamon as an option.