I decided to start the challenge with a tasty, chocolatey but not overly difficult cake, as far as baking skills concerned. Let’s treat this one as a proper warm-up. I really wanted to bake something that was more of a sure bet, so the first picture on my blog looks decent. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t like chocolate cake with a hint of apples and cinnamon accompanied by a glass of warm milk! I will not say it to my daughter, but surely can share it with you, it makes perfect breakfast! Especially at this time of year.

Original Recipe Chocolate-Apple Loaf 

Ingredients
plain flower – 2 cups,
sugar – 1.5 cup
olive oil – 200 ml
eggs – 4
baking powder – 1 tbs
baking soda – 1 tbs
coco powder – 2 Tbs
cinnamon – 1 tbs
walnuts – 100 g
raisins – 1 cup
apple – 2 units

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar until smooth and fluffy.
2. Add flower mixed with baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Follow by adding olive oil, cinnamon and coco powder. Keep stirring until all ingredients are well incorporated and there is no lumps.
3. Next, add sliced or finely grated apples (I prefer bigger chunks so just chopped them into quite irregular slices), crushed nuts and raisins (raisins taste better when soaked in a hot water for about 10 minutes). Whisk all together until combined.
4. Transfer the batter to the baking tin (you can grease it with butter before so that the cake doesn’t stick to the tin) and bake for about 50 minutes in 180°C, until a tester comes out clean.
5. Cool the cake and decorate with powdered sugar or melted chocolate – whatever your heart, or rather stomach, desires!

I can never stop myself from changing couple of bits in every recipe that falls into my hands. That is one of the things that makes baking so much funner and exciting. In this case though, changes were quite subtle so the risk of ruining the cake was minimal.

I cut on amount of sugar, as I thought one cup was enough. I think I wasn’t wrong and neither of flavour or texture did not suffer from that adjustment. Another thing that I couldn’t help myself but twig, was replacing olive oil with sunflower oil,  purely due to my personal preferences. The olive oil that I have at home is as pure as it gets, so the taste of it could be perceptible even after baking.  I had to hide this fact from my husband though as he swears by it. Well, it actually seems that Spanish olive oil
runs in his veins together with pimenton. Lastly, walnuts – I am not the biggest fan of those brain-looking nutrition wonders, hence the swap! Pecans do the job really well and most of all, they are really yummy!

What others thought of my loaf? At the end of each post I will enclose quick summary of what everyone that had a chance to try the cake thought about it. I will call it ‘Yummyness Score Chart’. I  really cannot wait to see which cake is going to win my little Christmas Bake-Off!