Apple and Blackberry Traybake with Sweet Geranium Sugar
You’ll find yourself reaching for this recipe over and over again. Here I use apples and blackberries with sweet geranium, but I also love it with green gooseberries and elderflower, or plums.
SERVES
10
PEOPLE
PREP TIME
40
MINUTES
COOKING TIME
50
MINUTES
Ingredients
8–12 lemon geranium leaves (Pelargonium graveolens)
3–4 cooking apples, such as Bramley Seedling or Grenadier
150g blackberries
25g caster sugar
crème fraîche or softly whipped cream, to serve
For the sponge base:
225g softened butter
175g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour
4 organic, free-range eggs
Sweet Geranium Sugar:
2-4 sweet geranium leaves
50g caster sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas Mark 3.
Line the base of a 33 x 23 x 5cm cake tin, or a 25.5cm sauté pan or cast-iron frying pan with parchment paper, allowing it to hang over the sides. Arrange 6-8 sweet geranium leaves over the base - these give the sponge a haunting lemony flavour.
To make the sponge base, combine the butter, sugar and flour in the bowl of a food processor. Whizz for a second or two, then add the eggs and stop as soon as the mixture comes together. Spoon the mixture over the base of the tin as evenly as possible (over the sweet geranium leaves).
Peel the apples. Cut into thin slices and arrange on top of the sponge in three lines. Arrange a line of blackberries in between each row. Sprinkle 25g of caster sugar over the top and bake for about 50 minutes.
Meanwhile make the sweet geranium sugar.
Whizz 2-4 sweet geranium leaves with the caster sugar in a food processor. Spread over a baking tray and set aside at room temperature to dry out.
Once it is fully cooked, the centre of the cake should be firm to the touch and the edges slightly shrunk from the sides of the tin. Serve in the tin, sprinkled with the sweet geranium sugar. Alternatively, leave to rest in the tin for 4-5 minutes before turning out. Serve with crème fraîche or softly whipped cream.
