Apple Tea Cakes

Sometimes I like to tell myself that the junk I eat is good for me. This recipe, for example. It is good for me, because I halved the suggested amount of sugar (although I added a little maple syrup for flavour), I included apple (hence helping on the old 5 and 2 a day that often falls by the wayside), and I iced it sparingly. 

So it is true, that these are healthy, but only when you compare them to other cakes and desserts. Well some of them at least. Fortunately, they are also very, very easy to make. Just don't eat them for dinner, because then they should be classified as decidedly unhealthy.

Ingredients 

• 125g butter, softened
• 125g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
• 2 tblsp maple syrup
• 2 eggs
• 200ml buttermilk (or plain milk with a dash of lemon juice)
• 250g (2 cups) plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt (can leave out if you use salted butter)
• 1 apple, grated coarsely

• ground cinnamon mixed with caster sugar or fine brown sugar for dusting

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC (350ºF), then cream butter, sugar and maple syrup with a beater.
2. add eggs one by one, and then the sifted dry ingredients and buttermilk alternately
3. Finally stir in grated apple, then spoon 3/4 full into cupcake moulds and cook for 20 minutes or until golden.

These cakes taste beautiful just with a light dusting of cinnamon sugar, but I also made a thin icing mix out of icing sugar and boiling water and drizzled it over the top, then dusted quickly with the cinnamon so it adhered nicely. This is quite heavily adapted from Bill Granger's Buttermilk Cake in his 'Bill's Food' book of 2002.