A Year’s Worth of Lumberjack Cake

Last week I mentioned my gorgeous cookbook ‘A Year’s Worth’ – a gift from my equally gorgeous friend Amy from their trip to the land of the long white cloud. Within its beautiful thick creamy pages lies all sorts of goodness for the soul, divided into seasons and adorned with illustrations (which actually inspired the She Sows Seeds header). Not only is there scrumptious recipes but little tidbits on living a truly seasonal existence, amongst other odds and ends. Want to know how to deal with a hare? Secrets to the perfect preserve? How to build a fort and eat date scones under it? This is your book. It has such golden sections as ‘Various trifles to bear in mind’, ‘What to do with a glut of courgettes’ and my personal favourite ‘Dippy Things’ – where you will learn of a tapenade which is ‘a splendid accompaniment to fish, as well as being an extremely good dippy thing’. What truly confirmed that this was a cookbook which I would have a long and enduring relationship with was this though: ‘Those who combine the drinks hour with cooking should be wary that they do not overseason or overbrown the food’. Ah yes, that old trick.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a traditional family recipe of Matt’s mums in this Kiwi book – the ol’ lumberjack cake. Upon inspection by my mother-in-law she did confirm that the recipe was almost identical to her own. Scrumptious for husbands smoko, so off I went a’baking a-go-go.

[line]

Lumberjack Cake

2 large apples, cored and finely chopped
200g dates, chopped
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
120g soft butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt

Topping:
120g butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup dessicated coconut

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Combine the apples, dates and baking soda with a cup of boiling water and leave to cool. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then mix in the egg and vanilla and then the apple mix, including the liquid. Fold in the flour and salt and tip the mixture into a baking paper lined loose bottom cake tin. Bake for about 30 minutes, until nearly cooked. In the meantime, combine all of the topping ingredients, spoon over the semi-cooked cake and cake for a further 10 minutes, until the topping is browned.

I’ve altered the recipe ever so slightly to respect the integrity of both one of my favourite cookbooks and my mother-in-law’s secrets – but trust me, this cake is a winner no matter how much you tweak. Datey, appley, brown sugary goodness. You can thank me later.