Apple, Sage and Cinnamon Crumble cake
Ingredients for the cake:
- 300g cooking apples – peeled, cored and diced into 1cm pieces
- 1 lemon
- 225g soft butter
- 225g caster sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 10 large sage leaves – sliced then chopped
- 225g self raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 50g ground almonds
Ingredients for the crumble:
- Splash of olive oil
- 2 small eating apples – cored and sliced into 6 slices per apple
- 30g chilled butter
- 50g plain flour
- 30g demerara sugar
- 1 heaped tsp chopped sage leaves
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC / 160ºC Fan / Gas 4. Lightly grease and line a 20cm loose bottomed cake tin.
- Zest the lemon into a large mixing bowl with the softened butter and caster sugar.
- Squeeze the lemon juice into a smaller bowl and toss in the apple chunks, stirring to ensure they are all coated in the juice.
- With a hand mixer cream together the butter, sugar and zest until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of the flour at each addition to stop the mixture curdling.
- Gently fold in the sage, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and almonds.
- Drain the apple chunks well and dry on kitchen paper and fold these into the mixture.
- Transfer the cake mix to the prepared tin, smoothing down gently so no pieces of apple protrude.
- Bake for 45 minutes.
Start preparing the crumble topping:
- On a medium heat fry the apple slices until they start to brown on each side.
- Rub together the butter and flour to make a breadcrumb-like mix then stir in the sugar, sage and cooled apple slices.
- When the cake has had its 45 minutes top with the crumble mix and bake for a further 20 minutes until the topping is golden brown.
- Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing onto a serving plate.
The cake can be served warm, or cool and slice for a tea or coffee time treat.