Baking For Beginners: Rhubarb and Apple Crumble Cake

Well the weather seems to flit between Summer and Winter every few hours at the moment which makes choosing morning outfits all the more tricky, the general rule being if I leave my coat at home on a sunny morning then torrential downpours ensue. Food wise I'm flitting between salads and BBQs to warming winter stews and comfort food at the moment which inspired this crumble cake. Crumble is not just for winter, this crumble cake is perfect for taking along on a picnic should the sun put his hat on.

My rhubarb plant is still quite young so I used a mixture of rhubarb and apple but you could use all rhubarb, all apple or rhubarb and strawberry would be really fab. You could also chop up some of the stem ginger and add that too and why not throw a few chopped walnuts into the topping for good measure?

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble Cake  (serves 8)
You will need:

For the crumble topping:

• 150g soft light brown sugar
• 50g brown muscovado sugar
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp mixed spice
• 100g plain flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 125g unsalted butter, cubed  

For the cake mix:

• 200g rhubarb, chopped into bite sided pieces
• 2 large Bramley apples
• 175g caster sugar
• 125g unsalted butter (plus a bit extra for greasing the tin)
• 3 medium free range eggs, beaten
• 2 tblsp stem ginger syrup
• 75ml natural yoghurt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 150g self raising flour

Make it!

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4 and line the base of a 25cm springform cake tin with baking parchment and butter the sides well.
2. Combine all your crumble ingredients in a big bowl and rub in the flour until the mixture looks a bit like breadcrumbs and is thoroughly mixed and evenly distributed.
3. In a bowl combine the rhubarb with 50g of the caster sugar and mix well, the juices will start to be released whilst you make the cake batter. You don't want to prepare the apples until the last moment as they will go brown.
4. To make the cake batter you will need to cream the sugar and butter together until it's light and fluffy (I use an electric whisk for this) then add a tiny bit of the egg, mix well then a bit more and mix well and repeat this until all the egg is mixed in (this helps prevent it curdling) then beat in the ginger syrup and yoghurt.
5. Peel and core the apples, slice one into rings and cover the base of the cake tin with them and chop the other one into bite sized pieces and add to the rhubarb mix.
6. Sieve the flour and baking powder into the batter mix and gently stir in making sure all the flour is incorporated then using a slotted spoon add the rhubarb and apple mixture leaving behind the juice (you can always spoon this over the top of the crumble when serving it) fold in the fruit then pour the mixture over the apple rings and smooth the surface then pile on the crumble mix.
7. Bake for about 1hr 20 minutes or until the centre of the cake feels reasonably firm, the top will start to brown after about 30 minutes so I covered it with tin foil for the rest of the cooking time bar the last 5 minutes which I removed it to crisp up again. Leave to cool inside the tin for 30 minutes and serve with a good drizzle of cream or custard.