Spiced Brown Sugar Crumble Cake

This is not a polite cake. It isn’t a familiar cake. It takes things you would normally see at the dinner table and uses them to make your coffee break way more interesting. It’s the only cake I crave and when that craving hits, no other thing will scratch that itch. Not even my favorite cupcakes.

It started life in my kitchen as this recipe from Thomasina Miers. It’s great. The first several times I made it I followed that recipe like gospel and it never disappointed. Then, like anything you become addicted to, I wanted it to be stronger. I wanted to turn everything up a notch and see what it could hold. So I darkened the sugar, I upped the amount of spice, I used fresh ginger instead of ground, doubled the crumble. As far as a cake can be, it is…..assertive.

Which means it won’t be for everyone. But for anyone who likes their sweet things with a lot of personality I think you’re going to love it. The sour cream makes the most perfect, moist crumb and has turned my eye back to old fashioned sour cream coffee cakes and makes me think that carrot cake could do with the turn up treatment. It isn’t everyday a recipe inspires you in that way. To make you think about a galaxy of other things that could also bring great joy to your table.

I keep a list in the back of my mind about what to try next. Will it be plums? Maybe it can take a layer of fig and walnut. What if the black peppercorns were Szechuan peppercorns? Apple is a given at least once a season. I love, love, love this cake because it was originally built for blackberries but keeps an open mind about what it can become.

Baking Celebrating

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12 really- it is powerful so you don’t need much

2 hours: 40 min to mix, 80 min to bake

Ingredients

120g unsalted butter plus extra for greasing the tin

150g light brown sugar

150g dark brown Muscovado sugar

2 large eggs

250g plain flour

250g baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

20 black peppercorns, ground

20 allspice berries, ground

Thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated

1/2 tsp salt

150ml sour cream

1 Tbsp vanilla bean paste

For the crumble

115g light brown sugar

115g dark brown Muscovado sugar

120g plain flour

120g cold unsalted butter

For the filling

The photo above is done with 300g blackberries and is good but don’t be limited to that. You can try a lot of fruit that would be just as good: apples, raspberry, plums, pears would all work.

Instructions

Turn the oven on to 180C/160C fan to preheat and grease a 9in springform pan. This is a deep cake and I’ve found that using a springform pan makes it easier to get out.

Cream together the BUTTER and SUGARS in the way you have available to you. You want to keep going until they are past just incorporated and are light and fluffy. I use the stand mixer to save my elbows from wear and tear. And every time I think about my grandmothers and revel at the arm strength they must have had.

When it is light and fluffy add in the EGGS, one at a time and mix thoroughly after each one. Set that aside for now.

In a medium sized bowl, sift together the FLOUR, BAKING POWDER, GROUND CINNAMON, PEPPER, ALLSPICE and SALT.

You’re going to combine the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients in stages so pour half the dry ingredients into the sugar/butter mixture. Fold that together.

Pour the SOUR CREAM and VANILLA into the mix that started as butter/sugar and fold that together.

Now add the last part of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold together until everything is wet and there aren’t any dry patches.

Spoon half the batter into the pan and level. Then add your fruit layer. You want it to be generous and cover the batter but it also has to be submerged fully with the remaining batter so cut and arrange your fruit as needed to accommodate.

Cover the fruit layer completely with the rest of the batter and level.

Last step is to make the crumble topping. So use the bowl the dry ingredients were in if you want to save some washing up. Rub the SUGARS, FLOUR and UNSALTED BUTTER together until it isn’t floury anymore and you have a sandy kind of texture.

Scatter the crumble over the top. There will be a lot of it so it will be a thick layer.

Put in the oven and start checking at 60 minutes. It could take up to an hour and 15 minutes to be done. The only way to know is to put a skewer in the middle and wait until it comes out clean.

It is worth waiting for it to cool for quite a long time and is better the next day. It is great with whipped cream but even better with some creme fraiche.

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