apricot and almond crumble slice
I found a nice looking recipe for a plum and walnut crumble slice in the May issue of Delicious magazine. Fresh stonefruit is hard to find now we're moving into winter so I bought a tin of apricot halves in juice and thought I'd make the slice using tinned apricots instead.
When I fished the bag of walnuts halves out of the fridge and tasted one, they'd turned rancid so I looked to see if I had any other nuts in the fridge to make the crumble. I found half a bag of almond flakes, 2 blanched almonds in another packet and a half packet of raw almonds. I blanched the almonds, coarsely chopped them, added them to the flaked almonds then set to work making the slice.
Once I'd made the crumble mix and scanned the recipe I was a bit taken aback with how much sugar the recipe contained. I dialled back the sugar in the base and wish I'd noticed earlier because I would have reduced the sugar in the crumble as well. I do not like overly sweet cakes and all that sugar detracts from the flavour of the fruit.
To make this as easy as possible apart from chopping the almonds by hand, I whipped up the rest of the slice in a food processor.
Here's the recipe for you which makes 18 generous slices. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20ºC.
Apricot and almond crumble slice – makes 18 slices
Crumble
90g blanched almonds, chopped or flaked almonds
80g unsalted butter, softened
160g (⅔ cup) brown sugar (next time I’d reduce this to ½ cup)
75g (½ cup) plain flour
Pinch sea salt flakes
½ tsp cinnamon
Base
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g (½ cup) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
170g self-raising flour
¼ cup buttermilk
¼ cup golden syrup
1 410g tin of apricot halves in juice, drained and halved or 7 fresh apricots seeded and quartered
To serve (optional)
Labne, unsweetened cream or crème fraiche.
Method
Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm x 30 cm (8 x 12 inch) lamington with baking paper. Preheat oven to 180°C, conventional.
To make the crumble, place the chopped nuts into a bowl. Place the rest of the ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and whiz to make a soft dough. Transfer the dough into the bowl containing the nuts and using your finger tips combine to make chunky crumbs. Place in the fridge while you prepare the base.
Wipe out the food processor then place the butter, sugar and vanilla into the bowl and whiz until the butter is softened. Add the egg and process until combined. Scrape down the bowl before adding the flour, golden, syrup and buttermilk and processing again to make a soft batter.
Spread the batter into the prepared tin then arrange the apricot slices over the base. Scatter the crumble over the apricots before placing in the oven. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until the cake tests cooked when tested and the crumble is golden.
Allow to cool before removing the slice from the tin and cutting into slices to serve.
To cut down the sweetness I topped my slice with some labne but a dollop of cream fraiche or unsweetened whipped cream would do also do the trick. However, no-one else seemed to find the slice too sweet and a few people came back for seconds.
See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.
Bye for now,
Jillian
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