When I started this exploration of regional foods, I wanted to mainly do British recipes but every now and again I have to look further afield for inspiration.

The Virginia Apple Pudding is a moist spiced apple cake and is very easy to make. I found several recipes, most of which were adapted from the same source. I made a smaller version, with more cinnamon and a mixture of apple and pear.

My Recipe

• 1 cup of apple/pear mixture, peeled and diced
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ cup of plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ granulated sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 4 tbs slightly salted butter, melted
• ½ cup of milk
• ½tsp vanilla extract

I followed the original recipe fairly closely: Beat together everything apart from the fruit and cinnamon. Put the last 2 ingredients in a bowl and microwave for a couple of minutes to soften the fruit. Pour the batter into a cake tin then spread the spiced fruit on top.

Bake in the bottom half of a pre-heated oven (gas mark 5) for about half an hour.

After last weeks sago fiasco, this was a lot more successful. The cake was moist, tasty and had just the right amount of spice (I may have mentioned before that I believe most cake recipes under-use cinnamon and tend to increase any quantities given).