I wanted to try a cake with apple in, and did a few searches to see what I could find. I found a very tempting recipe for Apple Streusel Cake on Joyofbaking.com but was a bit concerned about how wet it would get whilst baking. So I opted for a recipe from BBC Good Food, for a caramelised apple cake with Steusel topping. The flavour should be the same, but caramelising the apple first and actually mixing it into the dough, rather than layering it on top, as with the other recipe, seemed to have the greater chance of success. So that is what I opted for.
It seems to have turned out quite well, if one can go by appearance. The test will be in the tasting which will happen in about 90 minutes, when I have taken it over to my tasters. In the meantime I will just say that it smells wonderful, but so does almost any cake with cinnamon etc.
Here is the photo of the resting cake.
Ingredients
· 100g butter, plus 1 tbsp
· 175g light brown muscovado sugar, plus 1 tbsp
· 2 dessert apples, peeled and cut into 1½ cm pieces
· 2 eggs
· 1 tsp vanilla extract
· 200g plain flour
· 1 tsp baking powder
· ½ tsp ground cinnamon
· 100ml milk
For The Streusel Topping
- 25g flour
- 85g demerara sugar, plus 1 tbsp
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 50g cold butter
- 3 tbsp toasted, chopped hazelnuts
2. While the apples cool, make the topping. In a food processor or using the tips of your fingers, rub together flour, 85g sugar, cinnamon and cold butter until the mixture is crumbly and only pea-size pieces of butter remain. Stir in 2 tbsp of hazelnuts. Set aside in a cool place.
3. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. To make the cake, place the remaining butter and sugar in a bowl or food mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract. Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and milk in two goes, alternating between dry and wet ingredients. When the mixture is well combined, stir through the apples.
4. Grease a 20cm cake tin with removable base and line the base with a circle of baking paper. Spoon in the cake mixture, smooth over the top with a spoon, then sprinkle over the streusel topping. Scatter with the remaining 1 tbsp demerara sugar and hazelnuts. Cook in the oven for 50 mins-1 hr or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins, then turn out onto a baking rack, remove paper and cool.