Apple and cinnamon cake/pudding

I've made this a few times and have had more than one person asking for the recipe.  This is even after I completely screwed up the recipe and served something that I thought was terrible.  I think this means it must be quite a forgiving recipe.

Ingredients

• 300g sugar (I use golden granulated but I'm sure caster is fine too)
• 280g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 2 eggs
• 120ml cup sunflower oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 120g chopped walnuts
• 800g chopped apples

Method

• Preheat oven to 160°C fan oven or 180°C otherwise.  If you have a gas oven or an AGA then you're on your own.
• You need a tin that's roughly 25cm x 25cm.If you've bought a tin for my killer brownie recipe then you can use it again for this recipe.  Ideal size is 25cm x 25 cm or thereabouts.  Grease and line the bottom of the tin.  Ideally you should use a tin with removable base as this cake is quite crumbly and extracting from a tin that doesn't have a removable base could get messy.
• This recipe requires a lot of apple.  I love Bramleys but I'm sure eating apples would be fine also.  When I'm chopping apple I fill a bowl with water and lemon juice.  I peel and chop the apple (in this case about the size of your small fingernail ish) and pop it in the water with lemon juice.  This stops it from going brown when exposed to the air.  I'm not a quick peeler/chopper but even if you are quick you might want to do this too because of the amount of apple you're chopping.I also prepare my apple before starting with any of the rest of the recipe so that most of the work after the peeling is just measuring and stirring.   I also prepare my nuts ooo errr.  I use a hachoir which is a posh herb choppy thing with a couple of blades but a knife is fine.  To be honest if they'd been in the cupboard, I'd have use pre-chopped nuts.   I hate chopping nuts.
• Before you read on you should read this next bit carefully.  DO NOT use a mixer for this recipe.  Use a spoon and stir it.  I have used a mixer and I killed this.  USE A SPOON.
• In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and bicarbonate of soda. Add the eggs, oil and vanilla, mix well (USING A SPOON).  Add the nuts and apple, mix until all the apples are evenly coated (USING A SPOON). Scrape into your prepared baking tin and level out with the back of a SPOON.
• Bake for 30 minutes and then cover with foil.  I know this is a faff but you will burn your cake if you don't do this.  I have discovered that a massive BBQ skewer placed on top of foil resting on my baking tin will stop the fan on my oven blowing the foil off.  I've also discovered that picking this skewer up without wearing oven gloves after it's been in the oven is a stupid idea.  Doh.
• Total cooking time is about an hour in my oven.  You may want to do a skewer test at 50 mins and do the skewer test again at an hour.  If you need to leave it in for an extra 10-15 mints then don't worry.  This will be a very moist cake because of the apple content and you are protecting it from burning with the foil.
• I have killed this by over-mixing and over-cooking and still been asked for the recipe.
• Serve warm or cool.  Oh and it freezes well which means it works well for those school cake sales or office cake-baking occasions.

Credit and kudos to Lisa whose original recipe I have translated from American and which is available here.