OK so that’s obviously not the real name of this cake, but a post by David Lebovitz happened to arrive in my Inbox the same week as the first June Bellingen Growers Market, and seeing as it’s apple season, it all seemed a bit serendipitous.

The Bellingen Growers Market is held at the showgrounds on the second and fourth Saturday of each month, and it’s a small, eclectic mix of bric-a-brac, plants, books, second-hand clothes and of course most importantly home-made, home-grown and mostly organic  or spray-free seasonal food.  The fruit and veggies are not the perfect, polished specimens you find at the big supermarkets (you know, the kind that have been in storage for months – maybe even since last season!)  They are more often than not, distinctly ugly …

Of course, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, so I picked four knobbly, pock-marked red varieties, one of which was so crisp and tasty that didn’t even make it into the cake. Luckily I bought extra, but I need to go back to the next market as I don’t remember which variety it was.  Anyway the recipe is straightforward so just follow the link …

The only change I made to the recipe was to substitute Frangelico for the dark rum (to save buying yet another bottle of alcohol) and to drizzle some lemon icing over the top (because I just happened to have half a lemon to use up).

The result was unanimously declared to be delicious… eat fresh, eat local and eat ugly fruit!