Cinnamon spice breakfast cake

The idea of cake for breakfast has never really caught on in England and this makes me sad. This is called a “breakfast cake” because it is not too sweet and its crumbly texture will satisfy both cake and biscuit lovers.

The batter is rather stiff – far more akin to a biscuit dough. I don’t want you to panic and think it will be too heavy. Here’s what mine looked like, as you can see, most of it is hanging on to the beater for dear life!

The heady mix of spices fill the kitchen with warming aromas and the crunchy topping is heavenly. This photo shows how it seeps into the cake as it cooks providing lovely little pockets of sugary spicy goodness:

For the sugar topping I used some lovely amber sugar granules from Barbados. Alas, I didn’t get to buy it in Barbados, but never mind – Waitrose is always a nice place!

A perfect cake for just about any time of day. It’s very easy to serve as it doesn’t require cream or any other accompaniment.

Ingredients

For the cake:
300g plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder (yes – tablespoon!
60g unsalted butter, straight from the fridge
75g dark brown sugar
1 egg
125ml milk
80g raisins or sultanas (I used raisins)

For the topping:
50g dark brown sugar or any dark granular sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Method

- Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan oven 150°C/375°F/Gas mark 3.

- Grease and line a 20cm round springform tin; I used an all-in-one liner.

- Place the flour, baking powder and butter in a bowl and either blitz to breadcrumbs in a food processor or use the old fashioned rubbing in method i.e. lifting and rubbing the butter into the flour. Either way, stop when you have find breadcrumbs.

- Stir in the sugar.

- Beat in the milk and eggs.

- Stir in the raisins.

- The batter will be sticky and thick, just like a biscuit dough. Spread it into the prepared tin.

- Now make the topping: stir together the sugar and all the spices and then sprinkle over the top of the cake.

- Drizzle the melted butter over the top.

- Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Mine took 40 minutes.

- Leave to cool for 20 minutes or so in the tin before turning out onto the wire rack and leaving to cool completely.

- The cake will keep for several days in an airtight tin.

- Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat.