foodie april ~ homecoming pie

Husband came home last night. Weary, stiff, a little chubbier (can you imagine how a spicy food lover eats when in Pakistan. Yup, like a chubby Pakistani. I'm so jealous.). Declared Karachi to be 'just like Maputo' and had photos to prove it.

And you know all those You Tube clips and email joke things depicting the world's most unbelievable driving? The intersections which look like swarms, the families of 5 on 1 motorbike etc? He now reckons they're all filmed in Karachi! I imagine he'll be more tolerant of South African bad driving for a few days. But probably only a few ha ha.

Although, and maybe because, I knew he'd been eating all kinds of exotic food for days I thought he might appreciate a homelove meal of roast chicken etc, followed by this apple cake recipe I've been wanting to try for ages. It comes from a friend who's been making it for years, and makes it supremely. So no pressure or anything. Ack.

I think I probably need to make it a few more times before I achieve her standard of orgasmic yumminess, and admittedly I probably didn't pay it the attention I should've trying to bake it in 30 mins before leaving for the airport. But as we all know, practice makes perfect, and what a pie to practise on.

And so easy!

So here we go ...

Le Apple Tart / Pie / Cake thingie 

60 ml butter

¾ cup castor sugar

3 eggs

1 ½ cups self raising flour

pinch of salt

1/3 cup milk

1 385 g tin pie apples

Cream butter and sugar together. Stir eggs in one by one. Sift in flour and a pinch of salt and mix, with the milk, until you have a smooth thickish batter.

Grease one large, or two medium pie dishes, pour in batter and arrange pie apples on top.

If using one dish, bake for about an hour at 180C until light brown on top, if using 2 medium pie dishes (which I think is better), bake for approximately 25 min - half an hour. 

You want the cake/s to have risen and browned, but not dried out. 

As soon as the cake/s come out of the oven, start making the syrup. This is the really good part ...
250 ml Cream
1 teaspoon caramel essence
1 cup Sugar (I think if using castor sugar a full cup makes this too sweet. I used about 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar.) 

Slowly stir all 3 ingredients in a pot on stove until the sugar has melted and the mixture just starts to bubble around the edges. Stab the cake/s all over with a fork or skewer (this is the fun part), and then slowly pour the syrup over them.

Either serve warm or wait 'til it cools. Oh so tasty.

Yesterday morning, before the cook-a-thon and airport collection, I took the 'kids' for a walk on the promenade and was thrilled to see a large pod of whales in the bay! The Southern Right whales visit our waters annually to spawn, usually between May and October. This is quite early for them to be here and I don't think I've ever seen them on the Atlantic ocean side of Cape Town before.

I love, love, love, the whales. They remind me of my childhood growing up near the sea and how, on still evenings, we could hear their ethereal calls to each other and their new calves. There are few things as uplifting as a wave from a whale tail, and almost nothing as heart-soaring as seeing one of these giants leap right out of the sea for joy. Welcome home whale friends!

If I thought they'd like apple cake I'd make a zillion and float them out into the bay.