I have been working in warm and sunny Darwin for the past week and made this cake for some Darwin staff. The saffron not only adds a lovely flavour to the cake, but gives it a lovely pale yellow colour.

The recipe was originally taken from the SBS Feast magazine; the magazine no longer exists, but the recipe can still be viewed online through SBS recipes.

 

Ingredients

75 g unsalted butter softened

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

220 g caster sugar

160 ml milk

300 g SR flour, sifted

¼ tsp saffron threads soaked in 2 tablespoons of warm milk

3 Granny Smith apples, peeled cored and cut into wedges.

 

60 g brown sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

 

1. Mix the saffron threads with the warm milk and let stand for as long as possible.
2. Preheat oven to 170°C (less for a fan forced oven, 160°C) and grease and line, with baking paper, the base and sides of a 22 cm springform cake tin.
3. Beat the softened butter and castor sugar until pale and fluffy
4. Beat in eggs, one at a time.
5. Combine milk, vanilla extract and saffron mixture.
6. Fold the milk mixture into the butter/sugar mixture, alternating with the flour and stir until just combined.
7. Pour the cake batter and press the apple wedges just into the top of the batter – make sure they apple wedges are tightly packed.
8. Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the apples.
9. Cook the cake, in the middle of the oven, for approximately 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
10. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer cake to a wire rack and cool completely.
11. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla bean yoghurt.

Tips

1. I used large sized eggs