Nici Wickes: Apple & Blackberry Sheet Pan Cake

Try this cake for the school lunch boxes this week – it’s quick to make and bake, soft and moist, incredibly delicious and square pieces are much more ergonomic in the lunch box.

Makes 20x25 rectangle cake

INGREDIENTS

150g butter

2/3 cup water

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 ½ cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch salt

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

1/3 cup yoghurt, sour cream or creme fraiche

2 medium eggs, lightly whisked

200g (about 2 medium) chopped apples, I used unpeeled granny smiths

½ cup frozen blackberries, thawed

 

ICING

1 ½ cups icing sugar

1 tbsp melted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

 

METHOD

Preheat oven to 200 C. Grease and line a shallow swiss roll tin or other rectangle tin measuring about 20cmx30cm. Twist the corners of the baking paper to get the sides to stand up a bit higher than the tin.

In a medium pot bring the butter and water to a boil.

Stir in the sugars followed by the dry ingredients – flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and mix until combined. Add in yoghurt and eggs and stir to combine then fold in the chopped apples and berries.

Pour batter into the prepared tin spreading it into the corners. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until it springs back to the touch. Cool for 10 minutes then ice while warm.

For the icing: Heap icing sugar into a large bowl and add melted butter and vanilla. Whisk, beat or stir until you have a smooth, pourable icing – loosen with boiling water as needed.

Spread icing over just warm cake and leave to set.

Slice and eat!

Make it your way:

You could grate the apple but I like the chunks.

Leave out the cinnamon and replace with vanilla or ginger if you fancy it.

Leave off the icing and eat warm as a pudding with custard and cream.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from news Talk, said.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
B thirteen minutes to ten non newstalks. He'd be our
cook Nicky Wicks is here with us. Hey Niki, Hey,
good morning Jack. Before you get in today's into today's recipe,
I just wanted to share with you a bit of
a shout out from fellow friend of the show, regular
contributor travel correspondent Mike Yardley. He said he just wanted

(00:32):
to say shout out to you because he said, your
self sourcing citrus putting recipe from last week is utterly amazing.
It has been a huge smash hit across the wider
family this week. So there you go.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Fantastic. I love it. I have eaten so much of
that in the last month.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Oh great, god on and my love. It's very good. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Okay, let's get to today's recipe and then we're going
to talk about an event later this week. But yeah,
this sounds amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah. Look, this is an apple and BlackBerry sheet cake,
and a sheet cake is really a sort of leftover
It's almost a catering tune and a bit of an
American term as well. That you sort of make the
cakes on a large scale, on a huge, big sheep pan.
I've reduced this down to a little Swiss rolltin, which
I love doing because these cakes cook really really quickly,
seventeen to twenty minutes and it's done, and yet it's

(01:19):
still got a decent puff on it, and then you
can sort of cut them into nice, big square bits.
I think are really economical to or ergonomical to both
fit in the lunchbox but also to eat. You get
none of that, you know, that nosing thin bit at
the end or anything like that as you do a wedge.
But and it's delicious and it's utterly economical as well,
because it's really got flour, water, sugar, sugar flour, bit

(01:42):
of yogurt, couple of eggs, bit of fruit. And at
this time of the year fruit is a bit of
a challenge. Apples aren't at their best, so I love
to cook. They've come out of cock stores and I
use just some frozen blackberries. So it's great. Here's what
you do. It's kind of weird, so hang it all right.
Oven goes on two hundred degrees, not fan bakedicular bake
greas and line a shallow Swiss rolltin. It's about twenty

(02:04):
times thirty centimeter. Try and I line it with a
large piece of baking paper and I kind of twist
the corners up so that the side sit up a
little bit. It's a good little trick to use. And
then here you go. This is how it starts, which
is so weird. In a pot. You bring the butter
and water to a boil, and that's one hundred and
fifty grams of butter, two thirds of a cup of water.
Bring that to the boil, and then after that's boiled,

(02:26):
stir in half a cup of brown sugar and half
a cup of white sugar, and then followed by some
dry ingredients one and a half cups of flour. You
could swift it if you like, but you just make
sure that a one teaspoon of baking soda is kind
of mixed in with that flour. Pitch your salt, teaspoon
of cinnamon. Sometimes kids don't like cinnamon, so you could
leave it out. Doesn't make a jot of difference, really,

(02:47):
but I love that with the apple, and you give
all that a really good stir and then add in
ol of This is done with a spoon, no beeders,
no anything. It's a one pot wonder. Adding a third
of a cup of yogurt. If you don't have yogurt,
you sour cream. If you don't have sour green, but
you have cream frish great. If you don't have any
of those, put some lemon juice in some milk and
it'll okay because you want that acidulation that kind of

(03:09):
works with the baking soda and gives it our puff.
Two medium eggs, you lightly whisk those first, and then
I chop up about two one and a half maybe
two apples, I use Granny Smiths and half a cup
of frozen berries. Throw that through the better, and then
pour your better into the dish into your lines tin.
Bake it for seventeen to twenty minutes and call it

(03:31):
for ten after that, and then ice it while it's
warm jack, which is unusual for a cake, but you
I think, I know. It kind of goes glossy and
then it cracks a little bit when it cools down.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
All what I love that.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
I love that. Yeah. I just use the vanilla based icing.
One and a half cups of icing sugar. It's a
thin layer of icing sugar. One teaspoon of melted butter,
two teaspoons of vanilla extra and enough sort of hot
water to make it make sure it can kind of
be poured over the cake and you're done, and it
is great. And I've eaten far too much of this
one this week.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, oh that sounds so good. Sos de listen an overlap.
Oh this is happy that the wider Yardley family will
be the light.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Oh good, yes, fairly, go for it.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Hey, so you've got an event this week later later
this weekn blend them.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yes, I have so next Thursday, the Marlborough Book Festival starts.
I arrive on Friday and I've got two sessions Saturday
and Sunday Friday night. I'm also part of the lineup
that does those sort of imprompt you without notes talks.
I'm very nervous about that. Yeah, it should be great.
Some great authors. Emily Perkins there, Rachel King so McCauley, fantastic,

(04:39):
Just a fantastic line up there. So get your tickets
and I'd love to see that. I'll be talking about
what it's like to make a TV food show, all
the little stuff that goes on behind the scenes. Of course,
my box the Quiet, the Quiet Kitchen series, So yeah,
I can't wait. I love Marlborough.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
So if you're in and around Blenham or anywhere in
tynamu hit yourself along.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
So good.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Okay, thank you hey. Just because I'm all about sharing
the love, Jack, we can cur the self sourcing citrist
as it was leg divine, says.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Gwen, So thank you.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Hey, there you go. Look we're just sharing the love
this morning. Thank you so much. Nikki. We're going to
make sure that apple and BlackBerry sheet pancake recipe is
up on the news Talks he'd be website and Caroline's
just flipping your notes, so Jack, we can I find
this amazing citrus self sourcing pudding or the recipe. You
can find that online as well, Carolyn News Talks he'db
dot co dot mded Ford slash Jack. So you find

(05:30):
everything from our show there, but you can also go
back to last week's show and find everything from last
week's show, including that amazing recipe.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks dB from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio