In remembrance of Rosie

I never met Rosie, but I thought the person who was so encouraging and thoughtful online could only have been as lovely in real life. I read the dreadfully sad news that Rosie from Baking Cakes Galore passed away. What a loss to her family, all those who loved Rosie and the blogging community too. In honour of Rosie, I have baked the Rosemary Remembrance Cake from Nigella's Feast.

Rosemary Remembrance Cake

1 eating apple weighing about 180g (today it was a Pink Lady)
1 small sprig and one long sprig rosemary
1 tsp caster sugar
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp butter
for the batter
225g butter
150g caster sugar plus 1 tbsp
3 eggs
300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 170C, line a small (450g) loaf tin with a loaf liner or grease and line using baking paper.

Peel core and roughly chop the apple, pop it into a smallish saucepan with the small sprig of rosemary, the teaspoon of sugar, the zest and juice and the butter. Put the lid on, turn on the heat to low and simmer the mixture away for up to 8 minutes or until the apple is soft.

Put the apple mixture (sans rosemary sprig) into a food processor and wizz it about to make a puree. Ideally you should wait until the apple is cool before doing this. Mine is always just not as hot as I am too impatient. I offset this by usually using eggs that are still a little tool cool - I guess it all balances out this way!

Add the butter, 150g of sugar, eggs, plain flour and baking powder and process until the mixture is consistently smooth.

Pour and spatch the mixture into the lined loaf tin, smoothing the top before sprinkling over the extra tablespoon of sugar. Lay the longer sprig of rosemary gently over the top of the cake*. As the cake bakes some of the oils from the rosemary will gently scent the top of the cake.

Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Leave the cake on a rack to cool, and remove the cake from the tin once it is completely cool.

*In reality I always put the rosemary on the cake first and then sprinkle the sugar over. The rosemary ends up looking frosted, and I like that.

Makes about 10 slices