Brown Butter Apple Cake

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 220g plain flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 120g Greek yoghurt
• 120g caster sugar
• 60g soft brown sugar
• 140g unsalted butter (to brown)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp demerara sugar
• 3 apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Heat the oven to 170°C fan (190°C conventional). Grease a 23cm round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
2. Brown the butter in a light-coloured pan over medium heat — you need to see the colour change. It will melt, foam, then quieten as the milk solids drop and turn deep golden, smelling properly nutty and toffee-like, about 4–6 minutes. Pull it off the heat the moment it hits amber, before it tips to bitter, and leave to cool until warm but no longer hot.
3. Whisk the caster and brown sugars with the eggs for 2–3 minutes until pale and thick enough to leave a ribbon trail. Whisk in the warm (not hot — hot scrambles the eggs) brown butter, vanilla and Greek yoghurt until smooth and glossy.
4. Sift in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and a proper pinch of fine salt — the salt is what makes the brown butter taste of brown butter, not just sweet cake. Fold through gently and stop the moment the flour disappears; overworking now means a tough crumb later.
5. Toss the apple slices with the lemon juice — the acid keeps them bright and stops them browning while the batter waits, and it sharpens the sweetness against the buttery crumb. Taste a slice with a grain of demerara: it should taste like apple pie filling in miniature. If the apples are very sweet, add another small squeeze of lemon juice.
6. Spoon half the batter into the tin and level it, arrange a third of the apples in a single layer, then top with the remaining batter and fan the rest of the apples over the surface in overlapping rings.
7. Scatter the demerara generously over the apples and bake for 42–48 minutes, until the cake is deeply golden, the apples have softened but still hold their shape, and a skewer comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. The edges should be pulling away from the tin slightly.
8. For a caramelised top, slide under a hot grill for 1–2 minutes until the sugar bubbles and turns amber — stay with it, it catches in seconds, not minutes.
9. Rest in the tin for 10 minutes (it's too tender to turn out hot), then ease onto a wire rack. To serve, cut thick wedges while still slightly warm, dust with extra cinnamon, and add a spoon of softly whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream alongside so it melts into the crumb.