apple and blackberry crumble cake

apple and blackberry crumble cake

• 20 Jul 2020

This cake is a tale of 2 cities and 2 recipes. I saw a photo of a blackberry and apple streusel cake in the Coles magazine and planned to make it while I was in Brisbane. I ran out of time so I froze the filling and took it back home to Sydney with me. The cake, which I then made in Sydney using the filling, was adapted from a Nigel Slater recipe. 




The recipe makes a simple but moist butter cake with a blackberry filling topped with apple slices, blackberries and an irresistibly crunchy crumble. You can make the blackberry layer and the crumble some time in advance. 



Blackberries are pretty expensive at the moment so I used frozen berries to make both the filling and the cake. Don't bother defrosting the berries before using them as frozen berries keep their shape better whilst cooking. You could leave out the blackberry layer if you wanted to and just stud the top with blackberries. Or if you wanted to, you could leave out the blackberries entirely and make an apple crumble cake. I promise you it will still be delicious.




Here's the recipe for you, which makes a 17 to 20 cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60 g eggs. My oven is a conventional oven so if you have a fan-forced oven you may need to reduce the temperature by 20ºC. 



Apple and Blackberry Crumble Cake (adapted from Nigel Slater’s ‘Tender, volume II)
Ingredients
Filling
75g blackberries, fresh or frozen
1½ tbsp caster sugar

Crumble
50g butter
50g plain flour
60g raw sugar
2 heaped tbsp rolled oats
pinch of cinnamon  

Cake
1 small Granny Smith apple, cored, coarsely grated
1 Granny Smith apple, extra, thinly sliced
1 small lime or lemon zested and juiced
75g blackberries, fresh or frozen
100g butter
100g caster sugar 
2 eggs
75g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
50g almond meal

Filling
Place the blackberries and caster sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring for 5 mins or until the mixture thickens slightly. Set aside to cool completely.

Crumble
Make the crumble by rubbing the flour and butter together then stirring in the sugar, oats and cinnamon to make large crumbs. Place in the fridge until needed.

Cake
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 17cm with baking paper. 

Squeeze juice over the apple slices then set to one side. Beat the butter, sugar and rind together until light and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat together. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl and then add the almond meal. Stir to combine. Add to the mixture in two or three lots alternating with the grated apple.

Spoon half the cake mixture into the prepared pan and then spoon over the blackberry filling. Top with the remaining cake batter before smoothing the surface. Top with reserved apple slices and blackberries and gently press into the cake batter. 



Scatter the crumble on top of the cake and bake for about an hour until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out moist but relatively clean. If the crumble browns on top too quickly, then cover with a piece of foil halfway through whilst it finishes cooking through.

Cool in the pan for 5 mins before turning onto a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. I served it plain dusted with a drift of icing sugar but some thick cream would be a nice accompaniment.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen (or Dad's).

Bye for now,

Jillian