Apple Streusel Cake

This is a recipe that I have been wanting to try for a while now, and this is one of the recipes from the Hummingbird Bakery book that I have used so much for my recent baking. This recipe combines three of my absolute favourite things: 1) cake 2) apples 3) crumble - it's a cinnamon crumble as well which I absolutely adore. The sponge recipe is actually a really simple vanilla sponge which was fairly easy to make. L very kindly offered her assistance, and chopped up two apples into slices for me. I then made the cinnamon crumble topping, and then took some time to carefully assemble the components of the cake itself. It all then went in the oven, and then there was an anxious wait whilst the cake was baking.

Apple Streusel Cake.

In the end, I had mixed success with this recipe. One thing I can definitely recommend right now is to only have one layer of the apples. When I make this cake, I actually had two layers of apple slices, and it turned out that this was far too much, which meant that the centre of the sponge didn't cook fully. What this basically meant was that most of the sponge had cooked perfectly and tasted very nice. However the centre was still quite liquid, which wasn't great. That being said, most of the cake was absolutely fine and tasted lovely, getting approval from both L and her boyfriend. The combination of the cinnamon crumble topping, the apple, and the vanilla sponge was really very nice indeed, and I will definitely be having another go at this recipe. I'm hoping to have more success next time.

Beckie. 


Update 06/03/2013:

After re-reading this post, I decided to have another go at making this cake this morning. Luckily I just so happened to have in all the necessary ingredients (thank goodness for having a well-stocked baking cupboard!), and made the attempt whilst catching up on some NCIS. So was it successful?

Second attempt: Perfection!

In fact, it turned out perfectly (perhaps Gibbs inspired me !). Ensuring that there was only one layer of apples meant that the sponge was not overwhelmed by too much moisture, and the sponge was beautifully light and fluffy. The combination of cinnamon, apple and vanilla sponge is absolutely fantastic, and I do believe that this may well become one of my favourite recipes.

Beckie.