By Irene Kappes

As a young girl I was regarded by many adults as an example of the classic tomboy. The younger of two daughters – by nine years – I learnt early on from careless grown-up talk that I had been a mistake. The result of this mistake was that my father felt he was subjected to the ways and whims of a household full of women. There was no son to stick up for him, to fulfil his fatherly dreams, to help him with the endless DIY and house renovating chores or the maintenance of a series of old cars. Therefore, it was incumbent upon me to step into those empty shoes. From the time I could wield a spade (aged six), I was to be found proving my worth as good as any son he might have had. Did it toughen me up? Possibly. I climbed trees, ran with the boys in the park and led a small gang apple-scrumping.

I loved apples, especially crisp, juicy, just-ripe apples, no matter how tart the flavour. You would think that the endless supply of shiny green fruits I received straight from the tree of our next door neighbour would have been enough to sustain me. But I needed a little effort and adventure thrown in to fully appreciate my apples – and the back alleys of our local neighbourhood in Southend, Essex, offered the perfect opportunity. Here, in the days when children were allowed to roam freely, I led my little gang to the best spots where trees overhung fences. Then, with a quick leg-up, I would gather as many fruits as possible, passing them down to the many pairs of upheld arms.

I’m sure we never managed to eat all the apples we stole or ‘scrumped’, but we certainly had fun doing it. Until I got caught, that is. Never rob your own backyard. Ignorant of this cardinal rule, I set about scrumping from a tree a few doors away. It wasn’t long before I was recognised. The neighbour complained to my mother. Standing at the front door and probably wishing the ground would swallow her up, my mother had to endure the slightly posh neighbour very politely informing her that if I was deprived of apples, I could simply go and ask her for one. My apple-scrumping days came to an abrupt end. Somehow it just wouldn’t have been the same after that. However, whilst the scrumping fizzled out – my love of apples did not.

Ingredients

• 85g self-raising flour (sifted)
• 90g ground almonds
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g butter
• 3 eggs
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp almond essence
• 2 dessert apples – such as Golden Delicious

Method

• Line a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.
• Set oven to 170 C fan (this is the temperature I set it to, but my oven does seem to run hot, and I often adjust recipe temperatures down, so you may wish to increase slightly).
• Whisk all the ingredients together, apart from the apples.
• Peel, core and cut the apples into chunks. You can either stir them in at this point or push them into the top of the mixture once it is in the tin.
• Tip mixture into tin and level off. Sprinkle with some flaked almonds.
• Cook for approximately 40 minutes, or until the top bounces back when pressed/a knife inserted comes out clean (as long as you miss the apples).
• Remove from tin and cool a little on a cake wire. Serve warm with cream if liked.