caramelised apple cake with pecan streusel topping

Apple cake with streusel topping
 
Delicious any time of year, this recipe was dreamt up in Winter in remembrance of snowy days during a relentless grey and dreary January. Each year, for many years, our little family has visited a favourite restaurant in a cosy wooden cabin, usually buried deep in snow and hidden half from view, on the French/Italian border. We usually steal a march on the lunchtime trade by dropping by late morning for a warming drink and a slice of the best apple cake I have ever tasted. We take our treasure and savour it en plein air, under the bluest of blue skies. In lieu of that for now, and hankering as I am for those bright, sunny, carefree days, I have baked my own version. It's close but I'm not sure anything will be quite up to the memory (it really is the BEST cake!). Perhaps I just need the snow under my feet, the warmth of the sun on my face and my lungs full of the that crisp, clean Alpine air...
 
Ingredients:
(Makes one round cake, 23cm-27cm diameter, or 20cm-23cm square tin )
 
For the caramelised apples:
3 dessert apples, sharp and crisp (eg English Cox), peeled, cored and cut into chunks
20g butter
20g brown sugar
 
For the streusel topping:
50g salted butter, room temperature
75g self-raising flour
50g demerara sugar
75g pecans, roughly chopped
 
For the cake batter:
250g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp fine sea salt
250g golden caster sugar
200g unsalted butter, softened
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
150g Greek yoghurt
Zest ½ lemon

​Prepare your chosen round or square cake tin by lining and greasing well. A smaller tin will produce a taller cake, but keep within the size guidelines.  Preheat your oven to 350F/180C (160C fan).
 
First prepare your apples, by melting the 20g butter and sugar together in heavy bottomed pan and allow to caramelise. Add your chopped apples, coat in the caramel and cook on a medium heat for 5-6 minutes, turning occasionally. Transfer to a plate and leave to cool.
 ​
Now prepare your crumble topping: rub the room temperature butter into the flour lightly with your fingertips. You don’t need to ensure even ‘breadcrumb’ texture as you want a varied crumbly texture. Add the demerara sugar and mix evenly. Set to one side with the chopped pecans.

​To make the cake batter, sift together the salt, baking powder and flour. In another bowl, cream your sugar and butter together until pale and fluffy – 4-5 minutes.​ ​

Sprinkle the chopped pecans over the top and, lastly, the streusel topping.

Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes. The cake will be cooked when the top is firm and a skewer comes out clean. Or, better still, use a probe thermometer. The cake will be cooked when the thermometer reads around 96C-98C. If you bake a cake to temperatures beyond this the moisture will be start to be lost and your cake will begin to dry out.
 
When cooked, remove the cake from the oven but leave in the tin for 10 minutes or so, before placing on a wire rack to cool.

Delicious warm or cold, and wonderful with a dollop of sour cream or Greek yoghurt.

​Pour yourself a cup of tea, find a good book and just take five!

​Now whisk your eggs together and gradually incorporate into your creamed butter mix. If you mix in 5 or 6 additions they egg shouldn’t curdle, but don’t panic if you add a little too quickly and the mix does separate a little. All will be well! 

​Whisk in your Greek yoghurt, lemon zest and vanilla until smoothly incorporated. Now switch to a metal spoon and gently fold in your remaining dry ingredients about a quarter at a time, working as little as possible to establish a homogenous mix. If the mix seems a little too stiff, you can let down the mixture by adding a tablespoon or two of milk. This may happen if your Greek yoghurt is particularly thick – the texture varies greatly from brand to brand, or even batch to batch!

​Finally, gently fold in your cooled caramelised apples and pour/spoon the batter into your prepared tin. ​