Spiced Apple and Olive Oil Cake

|Try cooking apples in an unexpected cake that still easy as pie.|apple|280g plain flour½ tsp ground cinnamon¼ tsp ground cloves¼ tsp salt1tsp baking powder100ml virgin olive oil150g caster sugar1 vanilla pod seeds only or 3 tsp vanilla extract4 eggs4 apples peeled and cut in 1cm dice1 lemon zested30ml milk2 egg whites|Makes 2 shallow 25cm cakesPreheat the oven to 160°C grease 2 x 25cm cake tins and lightly dust with flour.Weigh the sugar vanilla seeds and oil into a large mixing bowl use an electric mixer to whisk the sugar and oil till light and fluffy.Add the eggs one at a time whisk until creamy and pale in colour.Sift all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Fold half of the dry ingredients gently into the egg mixture with a metal spoon. Add the milk and fold the rest of the flour in. Do not over work the batter.Fold in the diced apples and lemon zest.Whip the egg whites to soft peaks and fold the egg whites into the cake batter.Divide the cake mixture between the two cake moulds. This will give you two fairly shallow cakes if you like a higher cake only use one cake tin.Place the cake tins in the preheated oven on the middle shelf and bake for 1 ½ hours.Once the cake is cooked remove from the oven and let the cakes cool in the moulds for 10 minutes turn them out on to a cooling rack and let the cakes cool completely.Dust with icing sugar if desired and serve slightly warm.|15.00 minutes|16|British Larder