Apple Streusel Cake

This last weekend was a very special one. My Mum, Nan and Sister drove up together from Cornwall to spend a long weekend with us. Due to the occasion I let them pick the recipes to be made for this week's blog.

My sister went first and chose this recipe, the Apple Streusel cake. It was not something that would usually catch my eye and I admit now that I didn't think it would tickle my taste buds either.

Whipped this creation up in an hour as it had to be ready to take over to the in-laws, that were holding a bbq to catch-up with my family. Started off greasing up the tin and then made up the streusel topping. The first stage is to rub the chilled butter together with the cinnamon and flour using your hands. This took me ages to do, to get it to the breadcrumb texture needed. Stirred in the sugar and pushed it aside whilst the rest of the cake is made.

Once this is done you make up the sponge mixture and pour this into the prepared tin. The sponge is just vanilla flavoured and the apples are sliced and laid out on top of the batter uncooked. The streusel crumbs are sprinkled on top of everything and it all goes into the oven at once for 45 minutes.

It came out just in time to cool enough to handle so I could take it over for the bbq. It smelt lovely and the crumble topping had browned nicely too. The tin was still a little too warm to carry but we had no time to wait as we were already running late so I bundled it up into the car.

The welcome the cake and ourselves received was worth it. We had a wonderful time, even though the party had to be moved inside due to the rain. Almost everybody who attended tried a piece of cake after the meal. Some had it with cream but I tried it without anything first, as wanted to get a proper taste of my creation and have found that the Hummingbird recipes don't need anything added to them, they are always moist and flavoured perfectly. After being adamant it wasn't my sort of cake, it was delicious. We were worried the sponge part of the cake wouldn't be thick enough as I only have a 9 inch spring tin, not the 8 inch that the cook book says to use. The sponge wasn't very deep but it was enough with the apples and streusel on top. I think if it had been baked in an inch smaller tin it would have been too much sponge. The cooked apple and streusel topping were sweet and balanced well with the vanilla sponge. Would make this as a Sunday Roast dessert, think it would go well with custard too. Lovely overall and a cake for all seasons too, I might try it slightly warm with custard next time.