Books and cakes - 50

    For all the detail John Fowles goes into in The French Lieutenant's Woman, he gives us little about food. Early on, before his complicated love life has taken away his appetite, Charles requests a double dose of muffins for his breakfast, but as we had those with Lord Peter Wimsey last month it wouldn't do to repeat them today. Instead I had to look to the book's setting for inspiration for the cake, and as that is mainly Dorset, Dorset apple cake it is.

    This is perhaps too rustic a food to feature at Mrs. Poulteney's table, particularly when she's entertaining Lady Cotton, her "rival for social supremacy" - those gatherings were "in essence, if not in appearance, a thunderous clash of two brontosauri; with black velvet taking the place of iron cartilage, and quotations from the Bible the angry raging teeth; but no less dour and relentless a battle"! Perhaps the cake might appear in the more easygoing Aunt Tranter's house, with Mary feeding a piece to Sam during a snatched moment together.

    There are numerous recipes around (this one and this, for example), but I thought of Dorset's River Cottage, reached for my copy of River Cottage Every Day and made the Apple and Almond Pudding Cake which you see above.

    Back to the book - the 50th. the Cornflower Book Group has read - its post is here.

Comments

[Mr Cornflower]

The book doesn't live up to the cake...

[Anji]

It looks delicious.

[B R Wombat]

Oh, that looks good.

[Karoline]

It's one of my favourite cakes from that book.