Annie's Maple Cake

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My friend went on holiday recently to Canada and brought me back a can of maple syrup. This recipe was on a leaflet attached to the can, so I thought I'd try it. It's a simple cake with a lot of flavour, and I've named it after my friend. 

For the Cake:
125g butter, softened
100g white sugar
125cl maple syrup
1 tspn  vanilla extract
2 eggs
 200g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 1/2 tspn baking powder
60ml milk

100g toasted chopped walnuts

For the Maple Icing:
125g butter, softened
200g icing sugar
2 tbspn maple syrup
For the Maple drizzle topping:
125cl maple syrup
1 tbspn butter
pinch of salt
              
Preheat oven 180C/gas4 
Grease and line a 23cm cake tin
Beat together the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time then add the maple syrup and the vanilla. Mix the baking powder, salt and flour together and fold into the mixture with the milk.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 25-30 mins till golden. Cool on a wire rack.

For the icing - beat the butter, icing sugar and maple syrup together till light and fluffy.

For the drizzle - put the maple syrup in a pan over a medium heat and cook without stirring till it gets to 98C on a sugar thermometer. Let it cool a bit then add the butter and salt and beat together. Cool in the fridge.

Ice the cooled cake with the maple icing , drizzle over the syrup and top with the walnuts.



The cake has a great flavour, thought it is rather sweet. I thought it might be quite dense, but it has a soft texture and the icing, drizzle and walnuts each add another dimension to it. I found the drizzle a bit of a pain to make, so another time I think I'd just ice the cake and top it with the walnuts, though pecans would be good too.




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