Apple cake with black treacle icing

1 HOUR 15 MINUTES + COOLING | SERVES 10 12 | EASY

unsalted butter 200g, softened, plus extra for the tin

soft dark brown sugar 200g

black treacle 50g

eggs 4

apples 3 (about 300g), cored and grated

pecans 50g, chopped

self-raising flour 225g

bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp

ground cinnamon 1 tsp

mixed spice 1 tsp

fine sea salt ½ tsp

ICING

butter 150g, softened

icing sugar 300g

black treacle 2 tbsp, plus extra to drizzle

1 Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter a deep 24cm springform cake tin and line with baking paper. Tip the butter into a bowl with the sugar and treacle, and beat with an electric whisk until really light and fluffy. Crack in the eggs, one at a time, whisking well in between each addition.

2 Fold in the grated apple, pecans, flour, bicarb, spices and salt, then scrape into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when poked into the middle. Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool fully.

3 To make the icing, beat the butter with an electric whisk until really soft. Add the icing sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, whisking in between each addition until you have a light, fluffy icing. Whisk in the treacle until fully incorporated.

4 Put the cooled cake on a cake plate or stand and spoon the treacle icing over the top, gently spreading it to the edges with the back of the spoon. Drizzle with a little extra black treacle, if you like. Cut into slices and serve.

PER SERVING 12 536 kcals | fat 28.9G saturates 16G | carbs 63.2G | sugars 48.8G fibre 1.4G | protein 5G | salt 1G