Sew Lah Tea Dough: Thanksgiving Apple Loaf with Maple Syrup Buttercream

A little late to the blog this week, but I haven't been able to write about the Apple Loaf I baked for Thanksgiving, mainly due to being busy with the thing I am most thankful for in the whole world... Our little girl arrived safely on Wednesday 1st October, and we are just the most happy little family and life couldn't be better.

So now perhaps baking isn't the baby in my life anymore! But I have successfully baked, and one-handed baking is now a thing I should probably get used to, but it couldn't be more fun :-)

I had a bunch of apples to use and Thanksgiving dinner at my cousin-in-laws so I wanted to find a relatively easy and quick loaf recipe to bake in between feeds and changes that would work for the post-dinner, post-dessert, coffee and cake course of Thanksgiving!

I found this Apple Loaf recipe and thought it looked like just what I was looking for... As usual a few tweaks and it was just perfect! Very moist, which meant it also kept really well too. Give it a try this Fall!

Ingredients:

175g unsalted butter, softened
175g sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
25ml milk
2 medium apples, peeled, cored and grated

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F and grease and line a loaf tin with parchment paper.

2. In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition and add the vanilla extract with the last egg.

4. Sift in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice and mix together until combined.

5. Add the milk and stir in.

6. Add the grated apples and fold through so that they are evenly distributed.

7. Transfer the batter to the prepared tin and place in the preheated oven for 1 hour - 1 hour 15 minutes, until a skewer or cake tested comes out clean.

8. Take out of the oven and leave the cake to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

For added deliciousness I took some plain buttercream I had leftover that was in the fridge, and added 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, mixing it together to make a maple buttercream that I didn't decorate the cake with, but put in a bowl ready to be spread on the loaf (kind of like bread and butter) for people to have as much or as little of a wee bit of sweetness with their slice of apple loaf!