Sultana Apple Tea Cake

I made this cake because I thought I needed to have a Tea Cake in order to make cake crumbs for this Spicy Apple Tart recipe. Sometimes cooking with Nanna is a lot like cooking with a Matryoshka doll. As I unpack each recipe, two more are called forth. Now, if only I knew of a place where I could get a recipe for tea cake...? Oh. 

This looks nothing like any tea cake I've ever eaten. And, if one would care to review the recipe method, I think the question of why this cake needs to be kneaded into shape has to be asked. It's cake-bread, bread-cake, I don't know what it is really, but I'm going to call it Sultana Apple Tea Cake because that's what it's been called for the past 90+ years. It is tasty enough, and disappeared from my desk swiftly. Of course, the usual flood of praiseful emails and phone calls followed, for which I am ever grateful. I love so much that these recipes are working (most of them anyway), and are found to be tasty by everyone who tries one of my (Nanna's) cakes. 

Sultana Apple Tea Cake

3 small/medium apples

2 cups self-raising flour

¼ tsp. salt

1 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp. sugar

1 egg

145ml milk

½ tsp. vanilla essence

¾ cup sultanas

¼ tsp. mixed spice

2 tbsp. chopped walnuts

1 tbsp. brown sugar

Egg for glazing

Preheat oven to 190°C

Peel, core and slice apples thinly. Place into saucepan with a little water and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Drain and cool.

Sift the flour and salt, then rub in butter, adding the sugar at this point.

Beat the egg, milk and vanilla essence together then add to the flour, forming a soft dough.  

Turn onto a floured board and knead lightly. Divide into three pieces, rolling each out to approximately the size of the sandwich tin being used. 

Press one third into a greased sandwich tin and cover with half the apples, sultanas and mixed spice. Cover with the second piece of dough, then spread the rest of the apple, sultana and mixed spice mix.

Cover with the third piece of dough, glaze the top with egg and sprinkle with brown sugar and chopped walnuts.

Place into hot oven, bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 160°C and bake for a further 20-25 minutes.

~

For those of you who are not in Australia, please find here a selection of Measurement & Temperature Conversion Charts which should help with the accuracy of your own cooking.