She'll be apples

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It's apple harvest time.  And it brought to mind the Black Barn Farm in Stanley, Victoria and their U-Pick at Europa Gully orchards last year. (How awesome were the apple doughnuts?)

While I was waiting for directions to the apple rows I was asked by a 5 year old what I liked   Whoa those are tough questions.  I told her I like food.  And fire and I like cooking food and I like gardening and I also like talking.  Once I start I can’t stop - talking that is.  I especially like talking about food.  Talking about food with people and helping them on their food journey.  

I was visiting Black Barn Farm for the last day of their pick your own apple season.  I had some plans for the fruit.  Yes I’d keep some fresh as the pink lady apples are a perfect size for school lunches.  Then some to make Apple Strudel.  I need to practice my skills.  Lastly I was going to try and preserve them.  Some were going up in my loft.  I wanted to see how long they would last, so if I bought more next year I could see if I could go a year without buying apples from the supermarket.

Then some people came up and they looked lost.  They had come to an apple orchard to pick apples and didn't’ know what to do.  So off I go talking, telling them what to do, how to do it and offering baskets and suggestions.  Then a man comes up and I start talking to him.  Talk talk talk.  See I said to the girl.  I just talk. And listen and talk.  

We go and gather some chestnuts that hadn’t quite made it into the harvest.  She shows me how to get them out of their prickly shell.  Using her feet as a pair of pincers she squeezes the outer shell and the pressure exposes a nut.  It was too much like squeezing a pimple really.  I get the hang of it and off we go.  Next she says she found a bullet.   What! I think I’ll take that! Random, I know, but we are in the country!

Back to the apple weighing station and I pay for my pickings.  I continue talking to my chestnut friend about food.  She ask me if I like butter cake.  Sure I like butter, so in a cake its better.  She knows the recipe off by heart.  Really? “Yes” she says. “Would you like it?”
“Sure, can you tell it to me?”
“No but I can write it down”.
So in sparkly coloured pen I get a recipe for butter cake.  Being an apple orchard, her mum suggests that she include apples in it to upsell the produce.  So here is the recipe (Thanks Minnie!), and the translation.  
Black Barn aka Minnies Butter (and Apple) Cake

Ingredients
  • 250 gm Butter – removed from the fridge and allowed to soften to room temp
  • 1 Cup Caster Sugar
  • 2 teaspoons Vanilla Essence
  • 3 eggs at room temp
  • 2 ½ cups self raising flour
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1 large apple (2 small), peeled, chopped – your choice how you add them – on the bottom, top or through.  Cooked, uncooked, spiced with cinnamon or mixed spice.
Method

1.      Heat oven to 180 deg– 160 deg fan forced
2.      Butter and flour a cake tin (or line with baking paper if that’s your thing)
3.      Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla essence
4.      Add the eggs one at a time
5.      Fold the flour and egg in batches.  Half flour, half milk and repeat. (Fold using a light hand)
6.       Mix in your apple
7.       Pour into the cake tin and bake for an hour.  To check, insert a skewer and if it comes out clean the cake is ready.  Or you could press slightly o the top and if it rebounds completely the cake is ready. Take out of the pan and let it sit for 5-10 mins.  This lets the structure set which will mean the cake will come out of the tin without breaking.  Leave it longer and the butter will set and the cake will be harder to extract.
8.       Place on a cooling rack and dust with cinnamon sugar for a tea cake or your choice of topping.  See how quickly it gets eaten!

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