Gooseberry Crumble Cake

I mentioned in a previous post that I was given a large amount of fresh gooseberries from a colleague's garden. When I was looking for recipes, I came across this gooseberry crumble cake recipe by Nigel Slater. I followed his recipe and added a sprinkle of brown sugar on top before baking and the cake turned out beautifully. I'm not a fan of gooseberries mainly because they are too tart for me and have a very squidgy texture but in this cake it's absolutely delicious. The sponge is light and I loved the crumble topping. The gooseberries themselves tasted great! J got to taste test the gooseberry and orange drizzle cake as well as this one and he said this cake won hands down. I'm definitely making this again but with the addition of almond flakes on top as it will add extra nuttiness and crunch to the cake. I've been given even more gooseberries so looks like I'll be baking with them for the next few weeks or months!

I'm sending this to Simple and in Season hosted by Ren as gooseberries are in season.

I'm also sending it to Shop Local hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. The gooseberries are fresh from my colleague's garden.

 lovely fresh gooseberries 

 cake batter 

 add fresh gooseberries on top 

 add crumble mix 

 I decided to sprinkle some brown sugar on top 

 fresh from the oven

 You can just see the gooseberries under the crumblelayer here 

Recipe from Nigel Slater - scroll to second recipe on the page. The only change I made was to sprinkle some brown sugar on top before baking. 

Apple, Plum and Almond Crumble Cake

My colleague brought in a huge basket of plums to work from her garden. We ate some of it but there was so many left I decided I'd take some home and bake something with it. I started thinking about flavour combinations and in the end decided on this apple, plum and almond crumble cake. The cake was declared one of the best bakes of the year. 

The cake is lightly spiced with chunks of apple which added a lovely freshness to the cake. The crumble topping added a lovely layer of texture and flavour with the ground almonds and oats. The plums were tart but still retained their shape and moisture after baking and paired well with the toasted almond flakes. The cake is delicious on its own but would go well with some custard or cream. 

I'm entering this to several blogging challenges this month. Firstly to the Rix Aga Inspired Recipe Competition where the theme is plums. 

Simple and in Season hosted this month by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary for Ren from RenBehan.com. It's definitely plum season as these came fresh from my colleague's garden.

Shop Local hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This challenge was created to highlight produce from local sources. The plums in this recipe came from a colleague's garden. 

The No Waste Food Challenge which is run by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This month, it's guest hosted by Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than... The plums were bountiful and would have gone to waste otherwise.

Update 19th January 2015

This recipe has been published in House of Fraser's 'The Blogger's Recipe Book'  I was pleased to have been invited by the team at House of Fraser Home Department to participate in this project. They've compiled an assortment of recipes from bloggers and it features both sweet and savoury recipes. There are lots of familiar bloggers in there and a few new ones that I've not come across on my blog travels. I'm not sure if the book itself will be for general sale but once I know I will update this post again. 

 The recipe book 

 My bio 

 My recipe

 adding chunks of apple to the batter 

 place the cake batter in the tin 

 top with the crumble 

 arrange the sliced plums on top 

 after baking for about 40 minutes - the middle will still be wobbly 

 add a sprinkle of almond flakes and continue baking until brown 

 fresh from the oven 

 you can see the chunks of apple at the bottom of the cake on the right side 

 

An original recipe by bakingaddict

For the cake

4 eggs = 259g (use the same amount of butter, flour and sugar) 

259g butter

259g caster sugar

259g self raising flour

2 red apples - peeled, cored and chopped

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

0.5 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the crumble topping

90g butter

90g plain flour

90g light brown sugar

50g ground almonds

60g oats

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the topping

Handful of plums - cored and sliced

approximately 35g almond flakes

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition.
• Sift in the flour and mix well.
• Stir in the apple chunks by hand and pour into a 23cm round cake tin which has been lined. 
• Make the crumble topping by rubbing the butter and flour together with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. 
• Stir in the sugar, ground almonds, oats and ground cinnamon.
• Pour the crumble topping on top of the cake batter and smooth the top with a spatula.
• Arrange the plum slices on top of the cake.
• Bake for approximately 40 minutes then remove from the oven - the middle will still be wobbly at this point but the outside of the cake should be cooked.
• Sprinkle the flaked almonds on top of the cake and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes or until the almonds are toasted and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. 
• If the almonds brown quickly, cover with foil and continue cooking until the cake is cooked. 

Spiced Pumpkin and Apple Crumble Muffins

Steven Dotsch is the Speculaas Spice Master Chef at the Speculaas Spice Company. His inspiration to launch his Dutch grandmother's recipe of delicious, warm and sweet tasting speculaas mix in the United Kingdom comes from his love of eating truly authentic Dutch Speculaas - spiced biscuits.  He has now created a special spice mix which captures all of those flavours. It includes high grade cinnamon from Sri Lanka, cloves, ginger and 6 other spices. I started thinking about recipes to make with this spice and initially thought of cupcakes similar to my speculoos cupcakes. However, I had some pumpkin puree leftover from making my spiced pumpkin cream cheese swiss roll so I decided to create a recipe which included pumpkin puree. This is a very autumnal sounding recipe as it contains pumpkin, apple and a crumble topping. 

The spices smelt amazing and tasted even better. The spice mix worked well with the pumpkin and apple and I had a lot of compliments for these muffins. It's a very moist muffin which has a texture similar to bread pudding. You can clearly taste the pumpkin and the spices which really lifted the flavour of the muffin. I'd also recommend adding some pecan nuts which will give a crunch and another layer of flavour. My favourite part was the crumble topping which was sweet and crispy in contrast to the soft, dense muffin. 

I'm entering this to The No Waste Food Challenge which is run by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This month, it's guest hosted by Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than... I used up leftover pumpkin puree for this recipe and the end of a bag of oats for the crumble. The apples were also spare apples I had sitting on the table. 

 brown sugar, plain flour, milk, apples, eggs, pumpkin puree and spice mix 

 adding the spice mix to the flour

 adding chopped apples to the pumpkin mix 

 almost ready to bake... 

 adding the crumble topping 

 close up of the crumble topping 

 It has a bread pudding like consistency 

An original recipe by bakingaddict

For the muffins
225g plain flour
100g caster sugar
3 teaspoons speculaas spice mix
60mls milk
60mls vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped
285g pumpkin puree

For the crumble topping
120g butter
120g brown sugar
80g flour
80g oats
1 teaspoon speculaas spice mix

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar and speculaas spice mix. 
• In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, oil and milk with the pumpkin puree.
• Add in chopped apples.
• Now add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and mix. 
• Spoon into muffin cases. 
• Make the crumble topping by rubbing the butter and flour together until you get a breadcrumb consistency. 
• Add the oats, sugar and spice.
• Divide the crumble topping evenly between the muffin cases.
• Bake for approximately 18-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool or eat warm. 

Disclaimer: I was sent a pack of speculaas spice mix for review purposes. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own. This is not a paid post. 

Apple and Blackberry Crumble

This month AlphaBakes has teamed up with Random Recipes. They've decided to start at the beginning of the alphabet with A but here's the twist - you have to select a book at random and then randomly choose a recipe under the 'A' section of the index. My random selection lead me to British Baking by Peyton and Bryne. There are 8 recipes listed under 'A' and my random number generator came up with 4 which was apple and blackberry crumble. I've made a lot of crumble over the years but I've never made one in a pie dish and I'm quite pleased that mine looks quite similar to the picture in the book. Apples and blackberry are a winning combination and it tasted absolutely delicious especially when served with custard and ice cream.

As mentioned, I'm entering this to AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes and co hosted by myself. It's also a joint challenge with Random Recipes hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen.

 

 I had some blackberries in the freezer from a colleague's garden so it was a good chance to use them 

 I added more spice than suggested as I love cinnamon in crumble 

 The only change I made was to add some oats as I love an oaty crumble and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon as well for added spice. 

Recipe is from British Baking by Peyton & Bryne page 154

Apple and Blackberry Custard Crumble Cake

I made this recipe as a test for the recipe I was developing for the Sainsbury's 'apple and pear challenge'. I tweaked the recipe slightly for Sainsbury's but this is a pretty good recipe too. The inspiration for this cake came from Sunday lunch at a local pub where the crumble of the day was apple and blackberry. We didn't order dessert as we were too full but I decided to make my own apple and blackberry crumble in cake form. I added fruit to the sponge and a layer of blackberries on top. I also decided to add some hazelnuts to the crumble which gave it a lovely crunchy, nutty texture. The apples and blackberries paired beautifully and the hint of cinnamon really lifted the cake. The addition of custard and crumble appears to now be a signature bake for me but why mess with a good thing? 

 making the custard 

 adding apples and blackberries to the mix 

 more blackberries on top 

 crumble layer 

 

serve with vanilla ice cream 

For the cake

250g butter

250g caster sugar 

250g plain flour

4 eggs 

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces

100g blackberries + 50g blackberries to dot on top of the sponge pre baking

For the custard

250ml milk

1 vanilla pod 

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoon cornflour

60g caster sugar

For the crumble

90g butter

90g soft brown sugar

60g ground almonds

80g jumbo rolled oats

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

100g blanched, whole hazelnuts 

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Make the custard first by heating the milk and vanilla pod on a low heat to simmering point. 
• Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a separate bowl. 
• Pour the hot milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture and continue whisking constantly. 
• Rinse out the pan.
• Return the mixture to the pan and heat gently until the custard thickens. You will need to stir frequently. 
• Make the cake mixture by creaming butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add the eggs one at at a time and mix well.
• Fold in the flour, baking powder and ground cinnamon.
• Finally add in the apples and 100g blackberries and stir by hand.  
• To make the crumble, place all ingredients except for the oats and hazelnuts in a food processor and blitz until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add in the oats and pulse gently. Stir in the hazelnuts by hand.
• To assemble the cake, pour the sponge mixture into a lined tin and smooth with a palette knife.
• Sprinkle 50g blackberries on top, pushing them in slightly. 
• Pour the custard layer on top. 
• Then add the crumble layer. 
• Bake in a preheated oven for approximately 40- 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.