CHERRY CRUMBLE CAKE RECIPE

CHERRY CRUMBLE CAKE

Let's get ready to crumble! We’ve officially popped our round cake cherry. The Exploding Bakery has torn up its rulebook and baked its very first round cake. Up until recently we've been a bit square, just making cakes with right-angles in oblong tins. But now we’ve gone full circle with this Cherry Crumble Cake. We know it's not exactly reinventing the wheel, but for us, this new adventure is a big deal, we've grown a new arm to our business. With this arm outstretched, we can then feed you better, cake, made with better ingredients.

It's a square peg, round hole situation and we've found a way to fit this new groove. It's just a shape really, and our focus is still on making something taste as delicious as possible, with great texture as a support act. We also happen to think this cake looks pretty dapper too.

We thought it'd be a good idea to share this recipe with you, as it's so versatile and you could use pretty much whatever fruit is in season or whatever you have to hand in the fruit bowl or freezer. Freshly sliced bits of apple with cinnamon work particularly well.

Sour Cherry Crumble Cake Ingredients

Cherries - We love the zinging hit of sour cherries. They're not always easy to find, so you can always use the sweet type or perhaps a cherry compote
Butter - Use either salted or unsalted. But if you used salted, leave out any added salt
Sugar - We've use white caster sugar here, but a little brown sugar wouldn't hurt if you want a deeper flavour
Flour - We use organic, UK grown wheat. But any supermarket flour is fine. Wholemeal flour can be tasty, but thirsty on taking moisture out of your cake
Almonds -This is to add structure and nut flour is very tasty too, try hazelnut also if you can get your hands some
Eggs - Fresh free-range eggs will add a richness and lightness to the bake. But most importantly help bind the butter and melted chocolate to emulsify the brownie mix
Orange - Clean your orange to remove any wax from the skin. You can use other citrus, such as tangerines, clementines, satsumas, or mandarins. After zesting juice the fruit or simply eat

TO MAKE THE CRUMBLE BASE

225g self-raising flour
200g ground almonds
310g caster sugar
135g butter, melted
2 medium eggs
1 orange zested
450g frozen sour cherries

TO MAKE THE  CRUMBLE TOPPING

40g self-raising flour
40g ground almonds
60g caster sugar
60g jumbo oats
30g butter, melted
A squeeze of orange juice

Recipe 

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/350°F/gas 4 and line a 25cm springform tin with greaseproof paper. We find scrunching the paper into a ball and unfolding it makes it easier to place in the tin.

To make the base, first melt your butter and while it's melting put the self-raising flour, ground almonds, caster sugar and orange zest in a mixer and add half the melted butter and 1 egg. Combine on a slow speed until a breadcrumb texture starts to form.

Then add the other half of the butter, the other egg and keep mixing until a dough begins to form. Empty the dough into your lined tin and press it with your fingers to form a flat, even base on the bottom.

Then make the topping by adding the self-raising flour, ground almonds, caster sugar, jumbo oats to the mixing bowl and mix until all the ingredients are combined. Add the melted butter and a splash of orange juice to the mixed dry ingredients. Continue mixing until all the ingredients are combined into a dough, the mixture is likely to be a little sticky.

On the base, add the frozen whole sour cherries or whatever fruit you choose. Top the cherries with the crumble mixture by sprinkling it between your fingers to create little nuggets of crumble as evenly as possible.

Bake for about an hour at 180°C until the top of the crumble becomes golden brown.

Serve warm or cold with cream, custard or ice cream.

This will keep for at least 5 days when stored in an airtight container in the fridge.