Coffee streusel layer cake

Today is Father’s Day and the CCD’s (Caked Crusader’s Da) favourite cake flavour is coffee.  That made the selection of this cake extremely easy – and yet another celebration cake I wouldn’t be eating.  Let’s just say coffee’s not my thing.

What sets this apart from other coffee cakes I have made is that the sponge itself contains no coffee.  However, baked into and onto the sponge is a streusel containing instant coffee granules thus packing a real wallop (technical term) of flavour along with texture.  I had my doubts as to whether this would provide enough flavour...until I made the streusel and sniffed it; it smelled like a coffee shop where they grind their own beans (a horrible or lovely smell, depending on your tastes).

A generous drizzle of coffee icing adds further oomph (enough of the technical language I hear you cry!) and looks rather pretty.  In order to test that the icing was smooth and ready to use I tasted a bit...and can vouch that it had a very, very strong flavour...shudder.

I selected this recipe as the cake keeps for several days in an airtight tin; this meant the CCD could take home some slices and enjoy them throughout the week.  Let’s face it, when you tot up all the things our dad’s do for us, they deserve more than one day of celebration!

Happy father’s day to all the dad’s out there!

Ingredients

For the streusel:

80g walnut pieces
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules
115g soft light brown sugar
2 tablespoons plain flour
30g butter – melted and cooled

For the cake:

115g unsalted butter, at room temperature
115g caster sugar
2 eggs
175g self raising flour
4 tablespoons milk

For the icing:
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
1 tablespoon boiling water
100g icing sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/325°F/Gas mark 3.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Start by making the streusel: Place all the ingredients in a bowl and stir together.  At first it will seem like there isn’t enough butter to bind the dry ingredients, but keep stirring and it will become moist and clump into a texture like wet sand.

Put to one side while you make the cake.

Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and whippy.  Don’t skimp on this stage as this is where the air gets into the sponge.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little of the flour if it starts to curdle.

Fold in the flour and the milk.

Spoon half the cake batter into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Sprinkle half the streusel mix over the cake in an even layer.

Spoon the remaining cake batter over the streusel and spread it out, taking care not to disturb the streusel.

Sprinkle the remaining streusel over the top.

Bake for 1-1 ½ hours or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Place on a wire rack to cool and, when safe enough to handle, remove the cake from the tin and leave to cool completely.

When the cake is cool, make the icing: dissolve the coffee in the boiling water and leave to cool.

When cool beat into the icing sugar to make a thick, glossy icing, adding more water if necessary.

Drizzle over the top of the cake.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Cranberry and mincemeat streusel cake

One of the nicest things about baking is that all your friends, family and colleagues are aware of your passion (and very grateful to share the output from it!) and pass on recipes they’ve found either in publications or online. This recipe comes courtesy of the CCMIL (Caked Crusader’s Mother in Law) who found it in one of her weekly magazines.

My tastes can sometimes be strange and hard to justify; for example, I don’t like mincemeat when it’s in a mince pie but, spread out through a cake I do like it. If I was American, I believe I would have ended that statement with: Go figure.

What interested me about this recipe was that it used fresh cranberries. Up until now, my culinary involvement with cranberries was to open a jar and tip the sauce out into a dish! I think my problem with mincemeat is that it can be very sweet and very rich and the inclusion of fresh cranberries cut through this and balanced the flavours.

The first flavour this cake imparts is the sweet mincemeat, then the spices warm up only to be cut through with the fruity tartness of the cranberry, then the spice fights back. It’s a beautiful cake with so many flavours but all perfectly balanced and complementing each other.

The cake has another ingredient I’m premiering in my baking (pretentious? Moi?) – pine nuts. I adore pine nuts but have only used them in savoury recipes or sprinkled over a salad. Here they impart rich nuttiness and crunch.

For those of you interested in my holiday ramblings, they can be found here.

Over the upcoming festive period I may make more regular blog posts than usual with all my planned Christmas bakes. I hope you enjoy them as much as my nearest and dearest will!

Ingredients

For the cake:

150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g self raising flour
100g ground almonds
4 tablespoons milk
200g mincemeat
200g fresh cranberries

For the streusel topping:

25g unsalted butter, cold
75g self raising flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
75g Demerara sugar
100g pine nuts (you could used flaked almonds if you prefer)

Optional: Icing sugar to dust

Method

Preheat the oven to 180˚C/fan oven 160˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper ensuring that the paper comes up above the height of the tin.

Start by making the cake batter: beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Don’t skimp on this stage as this is where you get all the air into your mix.

Beat in the eggs on at a time, along with the vanilla.

Fold in the flour and almonds.

Fold in the milk.

Fold in the mincemeat and the cranberries.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Put to one side while you make the streusel topping: rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Stir in the cinnamon and sugar.

Stir in the pine nuts then add a couple of tablespoons of water and fork it in - just so the topping starts to clump a little. Add a tablespoon more of water if it's still very dry.

Scatter over the top of the cake.

Bake for 1 – 1 ¼ hours but test the cake after an hour – if a skewer comes out clean remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack. If the skewer has batter on it give the cake a further 5 mins then test again. Mine took about 1 hour 25 minutes in total.

Leave to cool completely before turning out and storing in an airtight tin. You can, if you prefer, serve the cake warm for dessert with cream.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.

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

Eat.

Black and blue streusel cake

Why black and blue? Because it contains blackberries and blueberries, of course! This cake has it all: fruit, sponge, crunch, squidge and spice – be very wary of someone who’d refuse a second slice!

The blackberries seem to like the hot, parched summer we’ve been having in the South East corner of England but I didn’t want to risk relying on them just yet, and ended up buying mine. I should’ve been more of a gambler because there were plenty of ripe berries for the picking.

You don’t need me to point out that this isn’t the most perfectly beautiful cake you’ve ever seen; some of the batter fought its way up during cooking giving a splodgy crust around the edge – pretty it ain’t, delicious it is. Mr CC commented that he wished the whole cake could be made of the crusty sponge around the edge proving that one person’s baking disaster is another’s delight!

This cake looks particularly attractive when cut; the fruit burrows a little into the sponge and is topped with a crunchy, nutty streusel. Because of the batter eruption at the edges, the fruit pooled a bit in the middle – again, it doesn’t help the look much but tasted lovely.

The flavour combination of the black and blue berries worked very well and was a nice mix of tart and sweet. I admit I was crestfallen when I took the cake from the oven and saw the batter balling up at the edges and the fruit sinking in the middle. It’s funny how we beat ourselves up because we all agreed this was one of the nicest cakes we’d eaten in ages – no one could resist picking the sponge from the edge!

Ingredients

For the streusel:
50g plain flour
50g unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
50g hazelnuts, roughly chopped

For the cake:
175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
175g self raising flour
50g hazelnuts, ground in a food processor until you have fine crumbs
1 teaspoon baking powder
200g blackberries
100g blueberries
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

To serve: thick cream

Method

Preheat the oven to 180˚C/fan oven 160˚C/350˚F/Gas mark 4.

Line a 23cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Start by making the topping: Place the butter and flour into a bowl and rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

Stir in the sugar and nuts and set to one side for later.

Now make the cake: start by beating together the butter and sugar until it is light and creamy. Don’t skimp on this stage as it is key to achieving a light, soft sponge.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, alternating with spoonfuls of the flour.

Stir in the remaining flour along with the ground hazelnuts and baking powder.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Spread the berries over the top of the batter and sprinkle the cinnamon over them.

Scatter the streusel topping over the fruit – some fruit will still be visible.

Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin, on a cooling rack until the tin is cool enough to remove.

Leave the cake to cool completely on a wire rack.

It will keep in an airtight container for at least 3 days.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Cherry streusel cake

This isn’t a show stopping cake that dazzles with the height of its layers or luxurious buttercream, but it is absolutely delicious. It falls into the category of rustic or farmhouse style cakes and, as regular readers will know, these are my favourites!


You could use a variety of fruits – I think plums would work well, but I went for cherry as I thought it would be delicious with the crumbly, nutty topping. This photo shows the three layers well; sponge, cherry and crumble:


The topping is extremely crumbly and, for that reason, I recommend you eat this cake in a dignified manner using a plate and a fork. No cramming it in leaning over the kitchen sink or you’ll lose half the topping!

Yes, that is a huge amount of cream. I can’t think of a single way to mitigate it....unflattering camera angle perhaps? Unfeasibly small piece of cake? I think you know me better than that...


Serving the cake with cream works particularly well as you can use the cream to pick up the crumbs – I’ve got it all sussed out!



Ingredients:
For the streusel topping:
85g chopped hazelnuts
85g plain flour
55g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
55g Demerara sugar

For the cake:

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
75g self raising flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Approx 20 cherries – I used tinned

How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.
- Line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.
- Start by making the topping: take half the hazelnuts and blitz in the food processor until you have fine crumbs. Chop the other half of the hazelnuts roughly.
- In a bowl rub together the ground hazelnuts, flour and butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Stir in the sugar and chopped nuts. Put to one side.
- Now make the cake: beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Beat in the vanilla.
- Stir in the flour.
- Spoon the thick cake batter into the prepared tin and level the surface.
- Place the cherries on top.
- Sprinkle over the streusel topping.
- Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out cleanly. Mine took exactly an hour.
- Leave to cool in the tin before removing and storing in an airtight container.
- Serve with whipped or clotted cream.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Custard peach pie

This pie isn’t going to win any beauty contests but boy, does it taste good! It is also quicker to make than you might think because you don’t need to bake the pastry blind. The whole thing goes into the oven at the same time.

Fruit and custard is a perfect combination. Here, the custard contrasts beautifully with the biscuity pastry and soft peaches.


I don’t think peaches are used enough in baking; they have a lovely flavour and texture which makes them ideal for cakes and desserts. I loaded up the pie shell with peaches:


This is what I consider an American pie as British pies tend to have pastry lids. The addition of the streusel topping adds a nice extra texture to the custard.

One omission from the original recipe though, which cost me dear, was the failure to warn that the pastry might over-brown. I would recommend checking it after 15 minutes and covering with foil if it’s browning too quickly. This will spare you the heart-break of having something look like this:


Luckily, one quick haircut later and it was ok!



Ingredients:

For the shortcrust pastry:
175g plain flour
120g unsalted butter, cold
3 tablespoons icing sugar
2 egg yolks

For the filling:
5 peaches (approx 700g)
150ml soured cream
3 egg yolks
200g caster sugar
30g plain flour

For the streusel topping:
60g unsalted butter
75g plain flour
60g caster sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

How to make:

- Start by making the pastry: put the flour, butter and icing sugar into the food processor and blitz until you get fine breadcrumbs.
- Add the egg yolks and blitz until the pastry just starts to come together.
- Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and bring together into a ball of dough, handling no more than is absolutely necessary.
- Wrap in clingfilm and chill for approximately 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C/fan oven 200°C/425°F/Gas mark 7.
- Roll the pastry out between two pieces of clingfilm until it is bigger than a 20-23cm pie dish.
- Ease the pastry into the pie dish. NB, there is no need to grease the pie dish due to the high butter content of the pastry.
- Leave approximately 2.5cm of pastry overlapping all the way around – you can crimp this or simply leave it plain.
- Peel 4 of the 5 peaches and cut into slices. I used sliced tinned peaches.
- Arrange the slices in the pastry case. You get a good fit if you overlap them in concentric circles.
- Beat together the soured cream, egg yolks, sugar and flour until just combined.
- Pour slowly and gently over the peaches – you don’t want to dislodge them.
- Bake the pie for 30 minutes or until the custard is just beginning to set. I recommend checking the pie after 15 minutes and covering the pastry edges loosely with foil if it is browning too quickly.
- While the pie is baking, prepare the streusel topping: rub together the butter, sugar and flour until you have breadcrumbs. Normally I would do this in a food processor, but the amount here is so small it’s quicker by hand.
- Stir in the ground cinnamon.
- After the pie has baked for 30 minutes, evenly sprinkle the streusel over the custard.
- Bake for a further 15 minutes or until the streusel is golden and a skewer inserted into the pie comes out clean.
- Cool the pie on a wire rack. You can serve the pie warm or cold.
- Just before serving, peel and slice the remaining peach arranging on top of the pie.
- I served my pie at room temperature with some spooning cream.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Streusel-topped caramel butter cake

This is what’s colloquially known as a “cut and come again” cake. Try stopping at one piece!


Both the cake and the streusel topping allow the butter and sugar to be the stars of the show. So often these are the work-horse ingredients in cakes but here they really shine. The hit of cinnamon in the streusel is just enough to add depth of flavour but not totally overpowering.



I made the cake, as the recipe stated, in a traybake tin but also think the mix would work very well as individual cupcakes, where you’d obtain more height.

The sponge layer goes into the tin first:


Then is topped with grated streusel:


Simple to make and uncomplicated to eat, this cake is delicious!


Ingredients:
For the cake:
125g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
110g brown sugar
2 eggs
110g self raising flour
75g plain flour
2 tablespoons milk (whole or semi-skimmed)

For the streusel:
110g plain flour
75g brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
90g unsalted butter

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease and line a 20cm x 30cm traybake tin. It needs to be at least 2cm deep.
- Start by making the streusel topping: place all the ingredients in a bowl and beat until you can press the mix together into a ball of dough. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- Now make the cake. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs on at a time. Add a little of the flour if the batter starts to curdle.
- Fold in half the flour along with 1 tablespoon of milk.
- Fold in the rest of the flour and the remaining tablespoon of milk.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level.
- Grate the chilled streusel over the top of the cake. Work fast, as the ball of streusel will warm up quickly in your hand. Spread out the streusel so it is distributed evenly over the cake.
- Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly. Mine took exactly minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.
- Serve with whipped cream.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Rhubarb and apple streusel

Serendipity – happy coincidences – isn’t just a rather weak romcom starring John Cusack (not that it’s stopped me from watching it about six times – like everything else John Cusack’s in) it actually exists in real life. “How so?” I hear you ask; well a week ago I was walking around Borough Market in my lunch hour and saw some beautiful forced rhubarb. I didn’t buy it because I didn’t have a recipe. Then, during the week, I came across this one so went back and bought my rhubarb!


I hate the name forced rhubarb, as it sounds a bit violent – I always wonder what the poor rhubarb was forced to do. Of course, I’m being silly; “forced” in this context means that it is grown out of season and indoors - it is also the most glorious shade of pink imaginable. Usually all my cakes are made with garden (free range?) rhubarb which is a summer crop.

This is an interesting cake as there isn’t actually any ‘cake’ part to the dish! It’s fruit sandwiched between crumbly streusel, the bottom layer of which bakes down into a base that is part cakey and part biscuity and totally delicious. You can see what I mean in these photos:



As it bakes the fruit releases juices into the bottom layer of crumble. In order not to lose any of these I used a cake tin liner which is an all in one liner i.e. no joins or gaps. It’s a good idea to use one of these not only to catch all the fruity juices but also because this type of cake is always quite fragile until it has cooled and a liner makes it easier to pick up and move.

The other curious thing with this cake is that it’s bigger going into the oven than coming out – which is the opposite of practically every other cake. Going into the oven the cake is piled up to the top of the tin, but as it cooks the fruit breaks down.

The cake is so packed with fruit you can see it trying to burst free in this photo:


The tart acidity of the rhubarb teamed with the sweet apple and almond crumble is a delightful combination. You could serve the cake warm with custard for dessert or at room temperature with whipped cream. I added a little custard to my cream as rhubarb and custard is a classic that must be adhered to whenever possible.





Ingredients:
For the fruit:
4 eating apples, peeled, cored and diced
300g rhubarb
80g golden caster sugar

For the streusel:
250g plain flour
125g ground almonds
125g golden caster sugar
250g unsalted butter, diced – use it straight from the fridge, the colder the better

To serve: custard or cream

How to make:

- Preheat oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/ Gas mark 5.
- Line a 20cm round springform tin.
- Chop the rhubarb into approximately 3cm chunks and place in a bowl with the diced apple.
- Sprinkle over the sugar and stir through the fruit so all of it is coated. Put to one side.
- Put all the ingredients for the streusel into the bowl of a food processor and blitz to fine crumbs. It is vital that the butter is cold otherwise you will get a dough rather than a crumble. If this does happen, all is not lost – simply refrigerate and then grate.
- Press a smidgen over half of the streusel mix into the prepared cake tin.
- Place the rest of the streusel in the fridge – I found this stopped it getting warm and clumpy.
- Tip all the fruit on top and then, using the palm of your hand, press down quite firmly. There is a lot of fruit and you need to compress it in order to fit the rest of the streusel on top.
- Scatter the remaining streusel on top. It should come up to the very brim of the tin.
- Bake for approximately 1 hour or until the top is golden and crispy and you can see juices bubbling up. Mine took a little longer at 1 hour and 20 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.
- Serve either at room temperature with some whipped cream or warm with custard.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Damson and cobnut tart with streusel topping

The damson tree in my parent’s garden has pulled out all the stops this year and given us a bumper crop. Unfortunately, all the damsons seem to be ripening at the same time, hence my jam making frenzy!


I’ve adapted this recipe from a plum and almond tart, then added a streusel topping. Hey, I’m greedy – I can’t help it, if you can add more to something, why not? You can easily make this tart with plums (Victoria would be particularly good) and almonds – just substitute like for like.

My plan was to use almonds but then, shopping at Borough Market – London’s oldest food market – I came across some Kent Cobnuts and decided to use them instead.

Cobnuts are a type of hazelnut and are fascinating looking things:


You have to pull the nut out from the leaves and then shell it, using nutcrackers.


The nut has the best flavour when toasted – this only takes 10-15 minutes at 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4. If you want to find out more about cobnuts this is a very useful site.

The tart case is not a pastry thus no rolling is required. It is almost a cinnamon shortbread and you press it into the tin. Cinnamon and plum/damson is a wonderful combination and as the tart cooks your kitchen smells of Autumn.

The crushed cobnuts were scattered into the base of the tart:


I was going to scatter the damsons in the tart base but then realised that if I was neat, I could pack more in! I ended up with something that looked like an exotic flower...made of damsons:


Here it is ready to serve:


The downside of packing the tart so full of fruit was that it was very juicy and hard to cut clean slices. In truth, that’s not much of a downside....



The biscuit crust was really delicious and I will definitely use it for other desserts. The cinnamon turns it a rich brown (rest of the slice not visible due to be buried under a gallon of custard!):


Ingredients:
For the cinnamon shortbread:
175g plain flour
130g unsalted butter, at room temperature
60g caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the filling:
1 kilo of plums or damsons (I used a bit more)
100g caster sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash of almond extract
30g of chopped, toasted nuts – I used cobnuts but almond would be lovely too

For the streusel topping:
60g unsalted butter
75g plain flour
60g caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.
- Start by making the cinnamon shortbread. In a food processor whizz together all the ingredients until you have a juicy crumb that, when pressed, holds together.
- Press the shortbread into a 23cm loose bottomed tart tin, making sure there are no gaps and the shortbread comes right up the sides. There is no need to grease the tin as the shortbread has a lot of butter in it.
- Now prepare the damson filling. Stone and quarter each damson and place in a bowl. Add the sugar, cornflour, cinnamon and almond extract and toss the damsons to ensure that each piece is coated.
- Scatter the nuts in the base of the shortbread shell, then arrange the damson slices on top. I did this neatly in concentric circles simply because you can pack more fruit in that way.
- Tempting though it is, resist the urge to pour the sugary syrup that is left in the bowl over the damsons. The damsons will release more juice as they cook and you do not want the shortbread to become soggy.
- Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
- While the tart is baking, make the streusel topping. Place all the ingredients in a food processor and whizz together until a dark crumb forms.
- When the tart has baked for 30 minutes, remove from the oven and scatter the streusel topping over the damsons. I like to leave a gap of about an inch around the edge with no streusel topping so you can see the damsons.
- Bake for a further 15 minutes then place on a wire rack to cool.
- The tart can be served at room temperature with some whipped cream or warmed and served with custard.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.