Torta Con Le Mele (Apple Cakes)

My Aunty Helen is an amazing baker. In fact she's an amazing person, the sort of person you want to be near by at any time. The majority of my childhood food memories are from Helen. I think baking is the most nurturing process as it gives ultimate comfort, evoking memories of times gone by.

Well, Helen makes an apple cake, a simple no fuss sort of puddingy apple cake and she passed the recipe on to me. I wanted to take the idea of that cake and play with it. Using the same no fuss ethos I wanted to develop a recipe for individual cakes. These aren't puddingy, they are light and delicious.

Also as an added bonus they are relatively low in fat and sugar, which is fab as I'm back on the wagon. However with that comes a small price, they don't keep well, so if you're not going to eat them on the day wrap them individually in foil and freeze them, take one out a couple of hours before you want to eat or pop into the lunch box frozen and it will be perfectly defrosted by the time you need it.

Makes 8 or 10 if you use regular cupcake cases

80g Softened butter or stork
270g S/R flour
3 large eggs
150g Demerara sugar
4 dessert apples peeled and sliced
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 170˚c

Whisk together the sugar and eggs until very light fluffy and pale in colour. Now add the butter and vanilla, whisk until well combined. Next sieve in the flour and add the apple slices, fold until it's well combined. Spoon into individual cake cases or muffin cases . Add a sliver of apple peel and a sprinkle of caster sugar onto each cake and bake in a preheated oven for 22-25mins.

*Weight loss this week 4lb