while writing this i am tucking into a slice of this very delicious ottolenghi apple and olive oil cake with maple icing.

this was one of the first recipes i made when i bought the ottolenghi book 18 months ago. sadly i was in a rush which meant that the cake didn’t have time to cool fully before icing so it wasn’t as good as it could have been. despite this it was demolished in very good time by claire and peter who were staying with us at the time.

it’s been on my “try again” list ever since and this weekend i finally got round to it. the cake is wonderfully moist – i do love cakes made with fresh fruit because of this – and the cream cheese and maple syrup icing works really well with the apple and cinnamon flavours in the cake.

i made a few changes to the recipe, swapping sour cherries cooked in pedro ximenez (i know it’s been a theme recently, i’ve been determinedly finishing off a bottle which was a bit too raisiny to drink!) for sultanas, and golden caster sugar for the usual white version. the px-cherries were such a fabulous addition i’d really recommend you try them in this, or any other cake which calls for studs of dried fruit. i think they would make a batch of scones particularly special.

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i used my cobnuts to make an apple and cinnamon cake. the recipe i used was a nigel slater one for moist plum cake (see here for a cherry & almond version, including the recipe which you can adapt if you fancy giving this a try) which uses a mix of flour and ground almonds.

i blitzed the cobnuts in my food processor and used this in the place of the almonds. a teaspoon of cinnamon into the mix and pieces of apples on top of the cake mix and that’s it. the cobnuts added an extra depth of flavour, similar to hazelnut. because i used the nuts fresh they were quite coarse which added a really nice crunch to the cake texture.