If you asked someone for a food associated with Dorset, you might get the following responses Dorset Knobs, Dorset Blue Vinney, Portland Pudding, Dorset Horn, the Dorset Naga…
Chances are though that the most popular response would be Dorset Apple Cake.
The Dorset poet William Barnes mentions an apple cake of sorts in his poem ‘Father Come Hwome’:
I got a little ceäke too, here, a-beäken o’n
Upon the vier. ’Tis done by this time though.
He’s nice an’ moist; vor when I wer a-meäken o’n
I stuck some bits ov apple in the dough.
With Dorset Apple Cake being such a well-known delicacy, I thought it was time to make it for this blog, and as with previous bakes, by using an old recipe from one of the recipe books we hold in the archives.
So I searched, and searched, and searched. I found nothing. Not one recipe for apple cake. I found multiple recipes for Apple Jelly, Apple Fritters, Apple Pudding, Plum Cake, Orange Cake, Lemon Cake but none for Dorset’s ‘National Dish’.
It did lead me to question why none of these recipe books had a recipe for Apple Cake. Did everyone know how to bake Apple Cake so nobody needed to write it down? Was it passed on by word of mouth only? Was it a dish for the average person in society, not the wealthy classes who were more literate, and able to purchase the variety of ingredients that necessitated a cookbook rather than rely on home grown staple foods? A lot of the archives we hold reflect the power dynamics of the time they were produced, most pre-19th century archives we hold are from the church, government, and wealthy landowners/families, people/organisations who were literate and could write, had the money for books and paper and the conditions to look after them, so naturally any recipe books of that time will also be those from wealthy families.
I eventually found someone asking for a recipe for Apple Cake in the Dorset County Chronicle, and eagerly sought out the reply in the next edition. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a strange recipe which was just apple, sugar, and lemon. All but ready to give up, the Bridport News from 27th November 1896 eventually provided what I was looking for! The recipe here was as follows:
Apple Cake – Two cups dried apples soaked overnight, then chopped and boiled in one and a half cup syrup a short time; beat one cup butter and two of sugar together, add three well-beaten eggs, three cups of flour, on teaspoon saleratus, cinnamon, cloves, and one small nutmeg, one teaspoon mace, one cup raisins stoned and chopped. Bake moderately.
I used fresh apples rather than drying and soaking some and used ground nutmeg and cloves. Saleratus is Bicarbonate of Soda. The bake moderately was a little too non-specific for my liking, the cake seemed to bake very quickly on the outside so had to be covered up to stop it burning.
The result was not bad at all, a little too much spice perhaps, and not really too much apple flavour coming through but a very nice cake nonetheless. Why not give it a try?! I’ll have to go and try other Dorset Apple cakes to compare it!
Do you have an old family recipe for Dorset Apple Cake you’d like to share? Or even an old family recipe book that’s been passed down through the generations? Does it contain a recipe for Apple Cake?! Why not share your creations with us on Twitter?
My late aunt was the expert on Dorset Apple Cake and would never ever have raisins anywhere near it. Also the old recipe seems to have more spices than she would have and this reflects in the colour of the cake, which I’ve always known as much lighter.
I find the best has the taste of apples in it without that being the overriding flavour.
Anyway, what do I know? I am certainly no cook and come from ‘up north’.
Have a chat with Vicky@dorsetfoodiefamily.co.uk – I’ve made apple cake very successfully according to her recipe, although I’ve used more apple, probably almost double, as I had lovely tubs of frozen apple chunks from our old tree and the first attempt was very good. I also prefer a lot more cinnamon. Will definitely try this old version, sound lovely with all the spices!
Please note it is Dorset Blue Vinny, I live in the village with the pub of the same name and I use to make the china cheese dishes for Mike Davies for his Blue Vinny cheese. Thanks
Very interesting I was hoping though that Dorset apple cake didn’t have cinnamon in it!
Whenever I produce an apple cake for teas in our Dorset village those consuming it will ask, “is this Dorset apple cake?” Well, no, I have just used a recipe from the internet and it has been baked in a cake tin!
My grandmother was born in 1911 into a Dorset Ag lab family. She worked for the Drax family prior to her marriage. Whenever she visited our family in early autumn, she would always ‘knock up’ an apple cake. I recall helping her to make twice as much flour (measuring with a tablespoon) as margarine into breadcrumbs, stirring in some sugar and then peeling, coring and chopping the fallen apples. With the addition of one egg and some milk, the cake was always baked in a swiss roll tin. To me this is proper Dorset apple cake.
That’s really interesting, I might give that version a try. How lovely to have a recipe and the memories passed down through you. Did your grandmother not use any form of raising agent, just the egg?
Hiya from New Zealand
WE are having a little lockdown so today I will combine my two lockdown activities: Genealogy and baking.
I love apple cake and would really enjoy seeing an old Dorset recipe book page.
The Dorset apple cake made by an excellent cook the village certainly did not contain spice and raisins and she always told me that the difference between a Dorset apple cake and a Somerset one was that the Dorset Apple cake was made using the ‘rubbed in ‘ method, using more flour to fat, and the Somerset was using the ‘creamed’ method – similar to a Victoria sponge. This was considered too extravagant for Dorset workers!
When I worked in the Reference Library (25+ years ago) someone wrote to ask for the Dorset Apple cake recipe, and as we couldn’t find one I was asked to reply as to how my family had made it. My family version would be similar to one above. Flour and a half quantity of butter (by my childhood we used margarine as we couldn’t afford butter for cooking, even though we worked on a dairy farm and my mother made the butter for the owner – we weren’t allowed any). Mix with fingers to breadcrumbs and add same half quantity of sugar and whatever apples you had, or blackcurrants in season. If you had an egg mix it in but otherwise milk would do. I suppose if you had some spice you added it, but we didn’t, nor as someone said before, dried fruit. We baked ours on an enamel plate with a piece of the marg paper underneath to stop it sticking.
Apple dumplings were the same mix, but with grated lard and cooked in a steamer.
My mother-in-law’s cake recipe was similar but she chopped the apples and covered them with the sugar leaving them to juice while making the dough, which made a moister cake.
Incidentally I am currently back on holiday and yesterday bought a Portland Dough Cake in The Crusty Cobb in Weymouth. I haven’t see one for years!
Some years ago I attend a most enjoyable “Cooking for men” evening class in Weymouth. Our tutor was a Scottish women who had gone into service as a teenager; she said she was sacked very quickly from her first post as she refused to work the water pump in the yard sufficiently prior to filing the kettle for the house’s afternoon tea. Every week she gave us two recipes in her copperplate handwriting, with her Dorset apple cake proving fool proof and delicious so that consequently so many people have asked for it. I add it below:
Dorset Apple Cake
8 oz self raising flour
4 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
1 lb. peeled and cored cooking apples
1 egg
2 oz sultanas
1 pinch of mixed spice
Some lemon zest (optional/recommended)
• rub fat into flour to a fine breadcrumb state
• mix sugar and spice – plus lemon zest
• cut the apples into small rough chunky bits
• add apples as you cut into the sugar/spice
• add apples, sugar and spice to the flour mixture; mix
well together
• add dried fruit.
• beat egg with 1 tablespoon of milk and add to mixture.
• prepare a round 9” cake tin. (helpful to line base with
greaseproof paper)
• spoon mixture in and sprinkle top with brown sugar.
• bake at 200C for 30-40 minutes.
• leave in tin for 5-10 mins before turning out.
• freezes well; can be warmed before serving as a dessert.
I am working on an old family cookery book from the Sherborne area and using the Dorset History Centre resources to locate some info. Happened to fall across this thread.
I offer “To make a Pippen Pudding”
Pare and Core Eight Golden Pippins then pound them in a Morter Boil Lemon or an Orange tender, Then pound it, Rine pulp and all with the Apples, Melt half a pd of Butter and pour upon it and half a Pound of Sugar. Take 8 Eggs ffour Whites beat and trained mix all together put a Sheet of puff past in your dish and bake it half an Hour.
You must Cut the Orange Open before you Pound it and take out the Strings and pipes.
A big cake, though using smaller eggs than we have nowadays.
Thanks for the recipes and comments everyone. I am after a recipe for the kind of Dorset apple cake served at the Hive Beach Cafe recently which was more like a pudding than a cake. Can anyone give me pointers on how to achieve that pudding like texture?
My grandmothers apple cake recipe ( she was born in 1908 ; it is a stodgy puddingy type of cake , lovely eaten fresh as it it , then after warmed with custard is delicious . Not sure how long it keeps as we eat it quickly :-
4 Oz butter ( I use marg)
8 Oz SR flour
2 eggs
4oz sugar ( I use brown but pretty sure she used castor )
5 sliced cooking apples ( she always used bramleys never eating apples )
Milk to mix
Method
Rub flour and butter ( marg) together , stir in 3/4 of the sugar .
Slice the apples , add to the dry mixture and stir.
Beat eggs with a little milk , stir in and add more milk if necessary to make a soft consistency .
Place mixture in a greased lined tin ( she used a round tin , I use a square tin ) , sprinkle rest of sugar on top .
Bake 30 minutes at 180 degrees .
This makes 8 slices .
A true Dorset apple cake has a lot of apple in it ! No spices or dried fruit .
Yes! I’m Weymouth born and bred and my family go back many generations in Dorset. My Nan (a Puckett) taught me the same recipe, with my own addition of cinnamon in the sugar sprinkle on top) It’s definitely a very soft, almost sticky cake best served with clotted cream. It’s the way it was passed down through my family although I’m sure other families all have slight variations.