This is the recipe for a cake that I started making in my early teens, I used to make it for family occasions around this time of year when we were lucky enough to have apple trees in the back garden. I can’t take the credit for this recipe it is purely down to Blue Peter from the days when you had to scribble down the ingredients from the television screen.I never did get a Blue Peter badge – but maybe it’s not too late!
Ingredients:150g Demerara sugar plus 2 tbsp for sprinkling2 Weetabix1 egg, beaten200g self raising flour50g wholemeal flour3tsp cinnamon2 cooking apples (approx 300g)75g sultanas150g butter, diced and softened
Preheat the oven to 220c/200c Fan/Gas Mark 8. Hot, hot, hot!
Grease a cake tin to bake this in, I like to use a 9” tin but this is a really forgiving recipe so use your favourite tin.
Here’s the magic ingredients…..Weetabix, trust me this is Blue Peter, it works!
Take the two Weetabix and using your hands scrunch them up into little bits. Place them in a bowl along with the selfraising, wholemeal flour and cinnamon. Mix together well.
Add the diced butter and rub into the mixture using your fingertips or a pastry blender. It only needs to be roughly rubbed in as you can see in the picture.
Stir through the Demerara sugar.
Grate the cooking apples and add to the bowl.
Next add the sultanas and beaten egg and stir the whole lot together to make a really stiff cake mix, almost bordering on a dough.
Place the mixture into the greased tin and press the top with a back of a spoon to level.
Sprinkle on a further two tablespoons of Demerara sugar and bake in the oven for 20 -30 minutes until the top is lovely golden brown. If you are using a smaller tin it will take longer to bake.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.
It is gorgeous warm eaten straight out of the tin but equally good cold, serve with cream, custard or eat it on it’s own by the slice.
Now where’s my Blue Peter badge?
Ruth Clemens, Baker Extraordinaire
Finalist on BBC2 The Great British Bake Off
Sounds yummy, but I haven't got any Weetabix… thus noted on my shopping list
LOL Ruth! I did get a Blue Peter badge but cannot for the life of me remember what for!!!
Well done you Kim! xx
Not keen on sultanas… maybe nuts instead would work?
Yes, you can add nuts instead of sultanas or just leave them out x
Really enjoying your blog and the recipes. We'll try this one at the weekend, we've got lovely apples to use and some weetabix lurking in the cupboard as no-one seems to eat it here anymore. Hope Blue Peter are on the phone shortly; you should appear on it and show kids how to bake something lovely.
As soon as I saw your blog entry the memories came flooding back. I too used that recipe as a kid and i remember making it a lot as my Dad loved it. Over the years and various house moves it got lost but we still talk about the weetabix cake with fondness.
I can't wait to give it a go tonight. I've e-mailed my Dad a link to your blog so he's going to bake it too
Thank You!!
looks yummy, but I'm most impressed with your perfectly peeled apples!
I won a BP badge too, for drawing an anti-litter poster
Ooh that looks DEElicious! Who'd have thought weetabix could be used in cakes? Not me! Ooh imagine what you could do with the new chocolate weetabix Ruth!
This use of cereal reminds me of the Allbran cake we used to make when we were little, can't remember the recipe though…
Mmm, I am going to try this cake, a friend is giving me a load of apples this weekend. Nom nom nom…
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Ooh… that takes me back – apple trees in the garden and the 'production line' processing them! xx
Just new to the blog and enjoying it sooooo much! As usual, I'm late with my Christmas cake but am sorting out the fruit today and will cut down on the stirring time. What do you think? Is that doable?
it was this cake got me in trouble cooking when i was younger. I rememeber it because I had no flour and remembered blue peter had used weetabix so I subbed all the flour for that same weight in weetabix lol Trust me it was not nice. This however looks worth a go with younger son at weekend thank you
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Hello Ruth…. I really like your blog. I think your rosie fairycakes look really wonderful and I am going to try them out! I have copied down your Blue Peter apple cake with my grandma it looks really good!
Me and my four brothers and sisters and my mum really wanted you to win, on the Great British Bakeoff. My mum wants to try the Itallian meringue and is waiting to get a thermometer!
My grandma has made the brownie and meringue cake 4 times already!!
I like baking Marsbar Squares and Aunty Shona's Cornflake Flapjack. (I can give you the recipes if you would like)
I am not at school today as I have a problem with my muscles. This keeps me at home sometimes.
From Phoebe (age 11)
Hi Charlene – you will be fine with the christmas cake just cut down your stirring time x
Hi Phoebe – lovely to hear from you and glad you are a baker too! xx
I have a few eating apples (Gala) that are almost ready to turn, could I use these in the recipe do you think?.. Can't wait to give it a go…
Lisa P – absolutely fine x
I made this this morning and it was delicious!! But I had to add an extra egg. Maybe I had smaller eggs than you! Anyway, my father-in-law was very impressed. Kept saying 'did you really bake this this morning?'. I think that's good…
Looks lovely! I never got a Blue Peter badge either *sobs* – do you think it's too late for us?? x
Hello Ruth,
I think your blog is excellent! Your recipes are clear and the pictures for various stages are very helpful. Have you considered doing a vlog so we can actually watch the cakes being made?
Just dealing with the last of my apples and made my apple and cinnamon cake – will give your blue peter cake a try next – never had a badge though.
This looks gorgeous!
im watching the great british bake off now!xx
If I was in charge….blue peter badges all round! xx
My grandma gave me her recipe for her 'boiled' fruit cake (at long last) and well as that hints if you boil dried fruit before baking a cake it acts like its been soaked. As a student buying the very very cheap dried fruit it also puts some life back into it!
It also reduces the sulphur which makes it better for my asthma suffering friends
Anyway enough rambling about fruit soaking- lovely recipe. A good one for the emptying cupboard!
I'm going to have to try this – it looks fab! I've got a Blue Peter badge – we collected and crushed aluminium cans at school for one of their appeals, and I wrote them a letter and drew a picture. I'm still proud of it 20 years later!
Looks scrumptious – I shall have to make it and compare to my spiced apple cake recipe!
http://rosieposiespuddingandpie.blogspot.com/
I just made this and it was absolutely delicious!
Thanks Ruth and Blue Peter!
I was looking for something different to bake for cake club at work on Wednesday and this really inspired me. Of course, I needed a practice run and my little girl (age 2) helped me this afternoon.
As many others have said, it's absolutely delicious, and my husband is glad this one's not going in to work. Will definitely make it again.
We didn't get all the sultanas in. Some little fingers pinched lots of them on their way to the bowl…!
I don't remember this at the time but I followed your recipe yesterday and it was scrummy.
One of the things I made that I do remember vividly is a vase/basket to put crocuses in for Mother's Day. It used those good old Blue Peter staples of an empty washing up liquid bottle and sticky backed plastic! The handle was attached with brass paper clips and 40 odd years later I've still got the little box of them.
Thank you for sharing this recipe, I finally got round to trying it yesterday – I was very intrigued by the weetabix! It was a big hit, even my 1year old loved it! Will def be making it again!
Love, love this blog and the pictures that show me that I am not heading for a disaster, well at least not with my wooden spoon. Trying this tomorrow to bring a smile to my forever hungry 14 year old son's face after school. Thank you so much for the time you spend on your blog xx
Hi Ruth,
Loved you on Great British Bake Off and seriously wanted to eat all the food through the screen (peach and blueberry boy bait mm). I have a question – if I want to change up the spices (I love spicy cakes e.g. cinnamon. Personally love cardamon) and use different ones, which would would you recommend and in what quantity?
Oh, and the wholemeal flour is wholemeal cake flour, right?
yes, wholemeal cake flour x
Cool, any idea of what other spices you could use in conjunction with the cinnamon? Would cardamon work?
becauseofitall…
cardamom could work, it's beautiful in chocolate cakes, just a case of trial and error till you find a combination that works for you xx
Hello, like yourself I love experimenting with different recipes but I'm never sure how long things keep if I wanted to use anything for a gift. How long would the Blue Peter cake last if it ever overted my Family
Shassa – as it's a moist cake from the apple I would say it would keep for 3 – 4 days but you could freeze it instead x