Irish Apple Crumble Cake

It’s definitely been a very autumnal weekend here in Hampshire with wind, rain and a definite drop in the temperature. We were in need of some afternoon entertainment yesterday so I decided it was a good opportunity to get in the kitchen, use up some Bramley apples and make something comforting and warming. I’ve been pouring over apple cake recipes for a few weeks now and had contemplated making a Dorset Apple Cake but then found this Donal Skehan recipe I’d saved to my Pinterest account.

We had this as a pudding after dinner yesterday with custard but you could just as easily serve it with cream or ice cream or even just plain. I’ve made a couple of crumble cakes with fruit before which haven’t worked particularly well but I enjoyed this as there was a good cake to crumble ratio and the cake wasn’t too heavy. You could always use blackberry and apple instead of just apple as well. You will need a 20cm round cake tin with a removable base.

Ingredients:

For the cake:
110g butter (plus extra for greasing
150g soft light brown sugar
2 large free range eggs
210g plain flour (sifted)
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
300g peeled, cored and sliced cooking apple (Approximately one large apple)

For the crumble topping:
50g vanilla sugar (or substitute with caster sugar)
50g plain flour
50g butter

Method:
1) Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 8. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin with a removable base.
2) With an electric hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until they are incorporated.

Beat the butter and sugar until pale

Add the eggs, one at a time and mix until fully incorporated

3) Fold through the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon until you have a thick cake batter. Stir through the apple and pour the batter into the cake tin. The batter will be thick, so use a spatula to spread it across the base of the tin.

Add the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon and stir until fully mixed

Add the apple slices

Pour into your cake tin and use a spatula to spread

4) Using a handblender with a food processor attachment, blitz the ingredients for the crumble topping until you are left with rough crumbs. You can also do this by hand in a bowl using your fingertips to combine the ingredients together or use a freestanding mixer. Sprinkle the crumble topping on top of the batter.