Cherry Crumble Cake

In my house, a secret war is ongoing. It’s a war that is potentially the most passive aggressive in history and one that I am currently losing. It’s the war of the fridge space.

Now when I moved in March, I had the whole house to myself for a month, but did I hog all the space in the fridge and elsewhere? No, I was good and nice and left plenty of space because I knew a couple of other people would be moving in soon. So then my housemates moved in and not only did they fill every single space left in the entire house, they also started muscling in on the equal portion of space that I was occupying – how rude! Literally, now it’s at the point that if I run out of something that lives in the fridge, I have to replace it immediately or else it gets filled with something stupid like a wine bottle full of water (???). Its super frustrating and is basically taking over my life in terms of things I’m annoyed about. Anyway, rant over! I’m just telling myself that I’ve only got a month and a half left in this house and then I’m free!! 

So onto this week’s recipe, cherry crumble cake! I know last week I said it would be cherry and dark chocolate but I decided while writing it this week that I’d maybe overused chocolate over the past few weeks – you can have too much of a good thing! So it’s just cherries and cake and crumble – delicious.

I’ve made a cake which was similar to this in the past but that recipe used blueberries and pecans. It was a great recipe and really delicious so it inspired me quite a lot with this cake. I’ve made a few adaptations – I’ve used a different crumble recipe for the topping, cherries and almonds rather than pecans and changed a few of the quantities – and it all works. It’s another great everyday tea cake, with the crumble topping just making it that tiny bit more special.

Some final tips before you get started: 

• I used tinned, pitted cherries for this recipe. Usually when I bake with cherries I use frozen ones, however yesterday I couldn’t find any in the shops so I had a go with tinned. They worked fine so I would say go with your preference – fresh, frozen or tinned. Obviously fresh are better but they also cost a fortune and you have to get the pips of them – I’m too lazy for this!
• To prepare your loaf tin, I suggest greasing and flouring the tin as well as placing a long strip of greaseproof paper along the base, with overhangs at each end so the cake can be easily lifted out. 

Cherry Crumble Cake

Ingredients

For the Crumble Topping:

60g Plain Flour

25g Unsalted Butter  (chilled)

25g Caster Sugar

¼ tsp. Ground Cinnamon

20g Sliced Almonds

For the Cake:

190g Unsalted Butter (softened)

190g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs

200g Plain Flour

1tsp. Baking Powder

¼ tsp. Salt

½ tsp. Cinnamon

30ml Whole Milk

200g Pitted Cherries (roughly chopped)

1)      Preheat the oven to 170◦C, grease, flour and line your loaf tin. Begin by making your crumble. In a small bowl, rub together the butter and flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the caster sugar, ground cinnamon and sliced almonds. Place to one side.

2)      In a large bowl or freestanding mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually, a little at a time, add the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar mixing well after each addition.

3)      In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Gradually add this dry mix to the wet mixture in three stages, stirring well each time. After the second addition, add the milk and combine. Once the mixture is completely smooth, add half of the chopped cherries and stir to evenly distribute throughout. Pour into your prepared loaf tin and add the remaining cherries to the top of the mixture. Top these cherries with the crumble mixture and lightly press down with the back of a spoon. Bake in a preheated oven for 60mins or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

4)      Leave to cool completely in the tin before removing and cutting into slices. Enjoy!