Apple & Blackberry Cake

All you need for an autumn afternoon. The fruit baked into the crust makes this cake, adding a fresh, no frills instant icing that makes it so damn pretty too.

It's naturally gluten free, but do swap out the buckwheat flour for regular if that's what you'd rather. It's simple to make, and hard to mess up, the batter is fairly amenable if you fancy adding a different flour, and the children love finishing it off by pushing the fruit into the batter.

The cinnamon buttery topping is what gives it a blessed golden top, and means the fruit stays juicy and never wrinkles and dries out.

      RECIPE

• 3 apples
• 200g blackberries
• 150g unsalted butter
• 80g coconut sugar
• 160g Buckwheat flour
• 100g almonds
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• Plus 1 tbsp sugar, butter and tsp ground cinnamon for topping

 METHOD

Preheat the oven to 170 

Cut the apples and core them, if you really must peel them do, but I much prefer the skins on for aesthetics and fibrous reasons. Slice into 1/8ths and put all the apple pieces into a bowl of cold water with a spritz of lemon juice to stop them oxidising and going brown ahead of their time.

Blend together the softened butter and sugar, until smooth.

Add the whisked eggs and vanilla extract.

Combine the flours, cinnamon and baking powder in a bowl together, and then sift into the butter mixture, just until thoroughly mixed. You don't want it to be over-worked and toughened.

Grease / line an 8inch cake tin. Scrape the batter into it, and decorate with the apple slices, pushing the pieces slightly into the mixture, and then adding blackberries as you fancy.

With the remaining butter, cubed, dot evenly over the fruit and sprinkle over the sugar and cinnamon.

Bake for 30-40 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Serve with a generous dollop of crème fraîche, a squeeze of lime and some extra berries if you have them on the side.

Like all the best cakes it works beautifully as a tea-time standalone, but is chic enough for serving after dinner, and just deemed righteous enough to have for breakfast or 11s with a coffee.