"Autumnal" Apple Crumble Cake

I found a great blog the other day called What Kate Baked... Kate is running an autumnal baking challenge and giveaway! As I am new to the blogging world I thought it would be good it get involved and use it as another excuse to bake something. The theme is anything autumny so I got out the apples!

The lovely Diana left work this week to go on maternity leave so I killed two birds with one stone and baked a autumnal apple crumble cake for her.

I absolutely love apple crumble so thought why not attempt a cake version. I think it turned out very nicely, I used a trusted sponge recipe from the Hummingbird bakery book and layered the two best parts of an apple crumble - tangy apple and crispy oats. I have increased the amount of apple puree in the recipe below as I would have liked a bit more in my cake, so it almost oozed out of the side. It seemed to go down well at work - let me know what you think.

Sponge

250g unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
320g self raising flour
1 tbsp baking powder
200ml sour cream

1. Preheat the oven to 170C.
2. Whisk together the butter and sugar until fluffy, ideally with an electric whisk if you have one.
3. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla essence.
4. Sift in the flour and baking powder. Scrape down the sides to make sure everything is combined.
5. Fold in the sour cream.
6. Put in the oven, on the middle shelf, for 40 minutes until golden on top and when pierced with a skewer it comes out clean.
7. Leave to cool when removed from the oven.

Apple purée


5-6 large apples, peeled and diced
Sugar to taste ( I used sweet apples so I only added 1 tablespoon of sugar, if you are using cooking apples you will need 4 tablespoons of sugar)
150ml water

1. Put all the ingredients into a pan and simmer until it reaches the consistency you like. Stir and crush with a potato masher. Add extra water if it dries out. I like it mostly puréed but with the occasional chunk so I simmer it for 30mins.
2. Leave aside to cool.

Crumble filling


100g butter
150g rolled oats
2 tablespoons icing sugar

1. Melt the butter in a pan and mix in the sugar and oats.
2. Spread out on to a baking tray. I put them on foil. Bake in the oven on 170C for 8 mins.

Cinnamon Icing


50g unsalted butter (room temp)
300g icing sugar
125g cream cheese
1 heaped tsp cinnamon

1. Whisk the butter and cream cheese sugar together.
2. Whisk in the icing sugar and cinnamon and whisk until fluffy.

To assemble your cake


1. Slice the cake twice. I used a cake slicer like the one below. It's great! You line up the wire where you would like it to cut and drag across the cake. The "feet" touch the counter so the cake is cut straight. I usually try to not buy any "gadgetty" things but this was cheap and speeds up the whole process (also easy to store). Otherwise you could separate the batter in to two cakes tins and bake separately. This would give you a sandwich cake with one layer of apple puree and oats, which is also good.

2. Top the first layer with half the apple purée. Sprinkle half the crumble mixture over the apple purée.
3. Put the middle layer on top of this. Top with the rest of the apple purée. Sprinkle the rest of the crumble mixture over the apple purée.
4. Top with the final layer and cover this in the cinnamon buttercream.

Enjoy with friends!