Appelkaka (Wardale wedding cake)

My mother has always made this Swedish apple cake as far back as I can remember, it's one of the most moist cakes I have ever tasted, this is mainly down to the use of grated marzipan in place of ground almonds. This was also one of the very first cakes that I baked for my husband, he loved it so much that when we decided to get married, he insisted that our wedding cake should be "appelkaka". Normally this would be made as one large cake, but for our wedding my mother tirelessly made batch after batch of these tiny cakes. I cannot tell you the overwhelming response that we had about these almondy sweet treats but it was completely worth the effort. This original recipe makes one cake but feel free to experiment like my mother did, armed with beautiful little baking cases they look truly impressive and wonderfully shabby chic.

You will need:

250g of marzipan

125g softened butter

3 egg separated

80g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

2-3 apples

2 tbsp of demerara sugar

50g of butter for the top

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees c. Line and grease an 8 inch cake tin. I leave the Marzipan in the fridge so that it is easier to grate, cream the grated marzipan and butter together. Separate the eggs, reserve the egg whites to one side for later. Whisk in each egg yolk one at a time until incorporated. Sieve the flour and baking powder and fold into the marzipan mixture. Whisk the egg whites until they form firm peaks. Fold in the egg whites with a spatula or a metal spoon, cut through the middle in a figure of eight moving the bowl as you gently fold. When the egg whites are just mixed in decant the batter into the cake tin. Top the batter with peeled, cored and sliced apples, arrange the apples in circles, starting with the outside in. Sprinkle with a little demerara and top with a little blobs of the butter. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes, you may need to cover the top with foil half way through the cooking process so the top does not brown too quickly. The middle should be a damp sponge, serve with lashings of thick cream.