Apricot crumble loaf cake
Tue, 26 May, 2020
Apricot crumble cake nothing like you’d expect: the apricots are soft dried ones, the crumble barely sweet and the cake is baked in a loaf tin.
When you hear ‘apricot crumble cake’ your thoughts go to summer, luscious fresh apricots loaded on a round cake base and baked under a sweet blanket of crispy and aromatic crumble. And that is indeed a wondrous dessert except it is not this one.
This is a winter version of a crumble cake. The apricots are dried and the cake is loaf-shaped. It’s basically a standard pound cake with a few apricot chunks floating about and random crumble scattered all over the rectangular loaf.
But it’s much more than the sum of those parts: the crumble over the loaf in particular. I didn’t smooth the batter once spooned into the tin and showered it indiscriminately with the crumble so it dipped into batter in places and in the others batter bubbled up over crumble, lavalike. When cut, it is the luck of the drawer how much crumble your slice will be topped with.
The recipe is a cut down version of Nigel Slater’s apricot and lemon curd cake, without the curd. Considering my version is rather hefty in calorie content already, I was a little wary of adding even more pure sugar in the form of curd; the original version nevertheless is waiting in the queue to be baked.
apricot crumble loaf cake
Servings: 10Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- For the crumble:
- 110g (scant cup) plain flour
- 45g (3 tbsp.) demerara sugar
- 80g (5 tbsp.) butter, softened
- For the cake:
- 125g (1 stick plus 1 tbsp.) butter, softened
- 125g (½ cup) caster sugar
- zest grated from 1 large lemon
- 75g (2/3 cup) plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 75g (2/3 cup) ground almonds
- 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 75g (½ cup) soft dried apricots, finely chopped
- icing sugar, for dusting
METHOD
1. Line a 9 x 5in loaf tin with parchment or butter and flour it thoroughly. Preheat the oven to 180C (no fan)/350F/gas mark 4.
2. First prepare the crumble: stir the flour and sugar in a small bowl and rub in the butter with a spoon until it comes together. Set aside.
3. For the cake, beat the butter with the sugar and lemon zest until pale and fluffy. Mix the flour, baking powder and almonds in a bowl.
4. Add a little egg followed by a spoonful of flour beating continuously. Add any remaining flour mix and beat until the batter is smooth. Finally mix in the apricots.
5. Spoon the batter to the tin; spoon the crumble over the batter.
6. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
7. Cool the cake in the tin. Remove from the tin, peel off the parchment and dust the top with icing sugar.
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