This is one of my favourite cakes. It’s easy to make and even easier to eat. Based on apples and the warming flavour of cinnamon, it seems very suitable for this time of year.

The recipe is a popular one, but this particular version comes — no extra charge for translation! — from my local organic food shop or “Biocoop.”

Mine, run by a wonderful woman called Gislaine, is in Montrichard on the River Cher in the Chateau district where we live in a tiny house constructed from the stone left over when the chateaux were built.

Crumbs from the rich man’s table! Biocoop isn’t a chain store, but an alliance of independent retailers selling organic food.

And they give away recipes free and don’t mind me filching them as long as I give them a mention. So if you’re ever in France, look out for them. They come highly recommended by the Commie Chef.

Ingredients

• 170g/6oz wholemeal flour

• Rounded tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 3 medium eggs

• 140g/5oz brown sugar

• 140g/5oz butter, melted

• 2 dessert apples, grated

• 55g/2oz raisins

• 55g/2oz walnuts, broken into small pieces.

• ½ tsp ground cinnamon

What to do

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/mark 4.

In a large bowl, beat the sugar into the eggs, then add the melted butter.

Mix the grated apple into this, then gently add and mix in the cinnamon, raisins and walnuts.

Grease a cake tin with butter, or line it with baking parchment (better!). Refrigerate for an hour, covered, before baking for 50 minutes.

Test with a skewer or knitting needle to make sure it’s cooked right through, in which case the skewer will come out clean and dry. If not, give it another five minutes then try again.

Now the hardest part: leave it to cool before taking it out of the tin!