Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Yield: 8
What better way to start a snowy, cold Sunday morning…with warm Dorset Apple cake and a dollop of clotted cream. I love apple cake – especially when it’s all gooey with apples so I decided to make one this week. I haven’t made one for a very long time and I totally forgot how easy they are to make. In fact, they are so easy I have already made another one this morning that’s nearly ready to come out of the oven.
There are many different variations on recipes for the Dorset Apple Cake. This one includes dried fruit. I have never had a Dorset Apple cake with raisins in before so the first one I made included them. They added a lovely sweet taste but as a colleague said – they wouldn’t be missed. So the one I baked this morning is with just apples and a dusting of cinnamon to spice it up.
With so many recipes out there it was hard to choose which one to try. In the end I found a great looking one on the Clipper Tea website.
- 225g plain flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 110g butter
- 110g unrefined granulated sugar (I used brown muscovado)
- 225g apples – peeled, cored and finely sliced. These can be cooking, eating or a mixture of both which is what I chose
- 75g currants or raisins
- 2 eggs – beaten
Method:
- Grease and line a loose bottomed 20cm cake tin
- Preheat the oven to 170ºC/fan 160ºC/340ºF/gas mark 3
- Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl and rub in the butter
- Stir in the sugar, dried fruit and apple
- Mix in the eggs
- Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and smooth the top with the back of a wet spoon
- Sprinkle some sugar over the top
- Cover loosly with grease proof paper – tuck it underneath the tin to secure it while in the oven
- Bake for 1hr 15mins until golden on top
- Leave in the tin for a few moments then remove on a wire rack
I think this recipe is great. It’s light, moist and full of flavour. And it goes perfectly warm with clotted cream or custard or plain and simple with a cup of tea which is what I’m heading to the kitchen for now!

I had the absolute extreme pleasure in trying Rachel’s Dorset Apple Cake and can sincerely say it was absolutely divine. I have had a few in the past that were pretty heavy but this was light, not too sweet and pretty moist. I’m looking forward to the next one
Apple cake is the best! I love any cake with apples and have made (and enjoyed) something very similar to this. Lovely photo too!
A lovely moist Recipe.