Normandy Apple Cake

Friends are coming for afternoon tea today and so I thought what better than a warm Normandy Apple cake and a huge steaming pot of tea! Alex and I spent a lovely morning baking and chatting and setting the table for afternoon tea.

• 4 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 250g unsalted butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 cup milk
• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
• Pouring cream, to serve
  

It is difficult to conceive of cooking in Normandy without apples. As well as being the key ingredient in the region's ubiquitous cider, apples are incorporated into almost any type of cooking and baking you can imagine. A slice of this teacake is a perfect mid-afternoon treat.

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Place apples, sugar and water in a saucepan, then cook over medium heat for 10 minutes or until apples are soft. Drain and let cool. Using hand-held electric beaters, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after adding each one. Sift in flour and slowly add milk, beating to combine. Pour batter into a 28cm cake pan. Top with cooled stewed apples and sprinkle with a little freshly grated nutmeg. Bake cake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature with fresh cream.

Serves 8-10

From At My French Table

Monday November 9th Market Day

Woke up this morning to a crisp Autumn day in Normandy. It's market day this morning in Bourg-Achard the village just 1 km from Chateau de Bosgouet and like every Monday Pete and I visit Monsieur Levian for vegetables. This morning I bought garlic, pumpkin, ginger, shallots, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and kale. After chatting to Monsieur and getting his wifes recipe for roasted kale.....will post recipe tomorrow if it's any good...it was on to the fishmonger for those beautiful scallops that are everywhere in Normandy at the moment. I also bought some prawns and a couple of fillets of salmon which I made into the most delectable fish pie for lunch...see below
After purchasing a "petit piece" of Pont L'eveque fromage we went to our favourite bar for a cafe creme and warm coissant before heading home for a morning of chores and cooking. Chrystelle my "femme de menage" who doesn't do such a "crystal clean" had finished a neat stack of ironing, mainly linen napkins from a luncheon we had on Saturday for some local french friends. I had left her with instructions to just "cest propre" the big kitchen ....this she does well...the trick with Chrystelle is to not give her too much!
Cooked up a storm of pumpkin & ginger soup followed by fish pie. Alex our 9 year old has had a bad cold so we ate lunch on trays with her in our room....she's taken over completely.
Here's the recipes

Pumkin & Ginger soup
2 large onions diced
2 cloves garlic finely diced
2 cm piece ginger finely diced
100 grams butter
1 kg Pumpkin cut into small pieces
1.5 litres homemade chicken stock
Method
Melt butter in large cast iron pot and saute gently onions, garlic and ginger
Add pumpkin to pan and cover with hot stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 mins.
Puree soup with a bamix or food processor.
Serve with a dob of creme fraiche and freshly chopped chives!

Normandy Fish Pie


1 large red onion finely diced
2 cloves garlic finely diced
1 chilli finely diced without the seeds
100 grams butter
1 head broccoli florets steamed for 2 minutes
2 dozen sea scallops
2 dozen prawns
3 salmon fillets
250mls cream
2 carrots diced
handful of freshly chopped parsley
6 sheets filo pastry

Melt butter and sute gently onions, garlic, chilli and carrots.
Add Salmon to pan and cook, breaking the salmon up as it cooks.
Add scallops and prawns and cook for 1 minute
Add cream and bring to boil then simmer for a few minutes.
Add steamed broccoli florets
Pour all into a casserole.
Scrunch up filo sheets and place all over the top of the casserole and bake in the oven for 30 mins on 180°C
Sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve!