The Most Perfect Cinnamon Fruit Crumble Cake from the Eat In My Kitchen Book
Guest post by Half Baked Harvest / Tieghan Gerard
Who’s up for cake today?
Cool, because I may just have the best cinnamon apple crumble cake in all the land. All you need to decide is whether to eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner? Because really, when is cake not the most perfect thing ever? Truth… it’s always perfect, any time of day! But especially this cake, it’s loaded with apples, is crazy buttery, and topped with the most cinnamony crumble ever.
I’m not sure if you guys know this or not, but it’s officially fall cookbook season, and well… there are just so many great new cookbooks being released! I’m really excited to share this recipe with you today because it comes from Meike Peters' new cookbook, Eat in My Kitchen.
Ever since embarking on this journey of writing a cookbook, I’ve realized just how much work goes into writing a book. You guys, it’s no joke!! I am currently working through all the edits, and while I am so excited to be getting closer to sharing the book with you all, it’s also crazy scary…and well, my eyes are slightly tired. Basically I am just praying that when the book is released you guys will all love it to pieces! (Tieghan's first cookbook will be published in 2017)
It’s so awesome that I have the opportunity to help others celebrate their cookbook release by sharing a recipe from their book with you guys! It’s fun for me, and such a great way to let you all in on the books I am loving! SO. Today we are talking about Eat in My Kitchen. Oh man, this book is just packed to the brim with recipes I love, so many great ones and so many that I know you will all love. But when I stumbled on this most perfect cinnamon fruit crumble cake, I knew that this was the recipe I needed to make and share with you all.
Let me just start off by saying that this cake is all kinds of incredible, AND that Meike made it really adaptable to all of the seasons by suggesting three types of fruit you can use – plums, rhubarb or apples. Seeing as I am obsessed with all things fall, and all things honeycrisp apples, I went with apples as my fruit… so, so, so good! What I love most about this cake is that while some fruit cakes can be on the dry side, this cake is anything but. It’s moist, buttery and almost even doughy in the center if you cook it for just under and hour…which I did…and it was perfection.
This cake is somewhat broken up into three layers. The base cake layer, the apple layer and then the crumble layer. All three layers are delicious, but together they truly make for the most perfect cake, and all of that cinnamon sugar crumble atop of those crisp apples… beyond amazing!
This is the perfect cake to serve warm, dusted lightly with powdered sugar. And yes, I do think this cake is acceptable, not only for dessert, but also as a very special (i.e. something to look forward to) breakfast or mid-day snack.
Bottom line: cake like this is great anytime, and since weekdays are usually in need of a little pick me up, you should totally be making this cake after work… It’s the right thing to do – trust me.
Pictures and introduction from Tieghan Gerard, recipe from the Eat In My Kitchen book. Tieghan lives in the mountains, in Colorado, she's the 22 year old founder of the popular food blog halfbakedharvest.com. Visit her and find lots of inspiration in her huge recipe archive! She's currently working on her own cookbook, The Harvest Table, which will be published in Fall 2017.
Thank you Tieghan for taking over the Eat In My Kitchen blog for a day!
The Most Perfect Cinnamon Fruit Crumble Cake
from the Eat In My Kitchen book, published by Prestel, October 2016
Serves 8 to 12
For the cake base
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (125 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (125 g) granulated sugar
1/4 vanilla pod, split and scraped
3 large eggs
2 cups (260 g) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
Choose one of the fruit fillings
2 1/4 pounds (1 kg) pitted plums, cut in half
or 1 3/4 pounds (800 g) trimmed rhubarb, cut into 1 ½-inch (4 cm) pieces
or 5 large sour apples, peeled, cut in half, and cored, the outside of each apple half scored lengthwise (5 times) Tieghan chose apples for this recipe, unpeeled and thinly sliced
For the crumble
1 1/2 cups (200 g) all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
2/3 cup (125 g) granulated sugar
1/4 vanilla pod, split and scraped
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (125 g) unsalted butter, melted, plus more as needed
For the topping
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) (preferably convection setting). Butter a 10-inch (25 ½ cm) springform pan.
For the cake base, in a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter, sugar, and vanilla for a few minutes or until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, incorporating each egg before adding the next one, and beat for 2 to 3 minutes or until creamy.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the butter-sugar mixture and mix with an electric mixer for 1 minute or until well combined. Scrape the batter into the buttered springform pan and arrange the fruit of your choice on top. Plums and rhubarb work best arranged vertically; apples should be scored side up. Push the fruit gently into the batter.
For the crumbles, whisk together the flour, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Add the melted butter and use the dough hooks of an electric mixer to mix just until it crumbles. If the crumbles are too moist and sticky, add more flour; if they’re too small and don't form large crumbles, add more melted butter. Immediately spread over the fruit, using your fingers to separate any large crumbles.
For the topping, in a small bowl, whisk together the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the crumbles. Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes (slightly longer if using a conventional oven) or until golden on top. If you insert a skewer in the center, it should come out almost clean. Let the cake cool for at least 15 minutes before taking it out of the pan.
Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Cake
This is my new breakfast love! After French toast, muffins and pancakes I have a new addiction, I fell for the lightest and most perfect fruity cake you can imagine. I mixed the flour with cornstarch which makes the texture more fine, it's soft, fluffy and tender. That's all I could ask for on a morning table which doesn't mean that it wouldn't work for tea time either. The problem is that the cake didn't last that long!
I went for an apple topping but I already have a few variations in mind, with blueberries, plums, pears, even some sour gooseberries when their time has come again. The apples were just right for now, I cut them in half and scored their surface. That's how I prepare them for my crumble cake and it keeps them juicy. Before I put the cake in the oven I sprinkled it with a bit more cinnamon sugar than I would normally use and it made a nice thin crust, aromatic and crisp. I recommend making this cake in a springform pan not bigger than 20cm (8"). If you work with a bigger form the cake will turn out flat and possibly dry. It needs the height and here's were the quality of this cake lies, its lightness and sweet juiciness!
Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Cake
For a 20cm / 8" springform pan you need
sour baking apples (like boscoop), cored, peeled, cut in half and scored on the surface, 2-3
butter (at room temperature) 160g / 5.5 ounces
granulated sugar 90g / 3 ounces plus 2 tablespoons for the topping
organic eggs 3
plain flour 130g / 4.5 ounces
cornstarch 30g / 1 ounce
baking powder 1 heaping teaspoon
a pinch of salt
ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon, for the topping
Set the oven to 180°C / 355°F (fan assisted oven) and butter the springform pan.
Mix the sugar and cinnamon for the topping.
Combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time and continue mixing for a few minutes until the mixture is thick and creamy. Mix in the dry mixture until well combined. Fill the dough into the buttered form and arrange the apples on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden on top. Check with a skewer, it should come out clean. Let the cake cool for a few minutes before you take it out of the springform.
meet in your kitchen | Phia & Josh bake Mum's French Cake
This is the start of a new series of features on the blog - meet in your kitchen! I will be meeting artists, chefs - people with a great passion for what they do, in their kitchen, to cook or to bake while we talk about their culinary life, current projects and inspiration.
I'm very excited to start with two artists who I first saw live a couple years ago, Phia and Josh! Phia performed on a houseboat on a big lake outside Berlin and mesmerized me with her singing, her Kalimba and the loops she created during her show.
The two artists grew up in Melbourne and decided to move to Berlin three years ago to grow as artists and touch new musical ground. They soon found that their ideas worked well together and the time was ripe for a colaboration. Phia, the singer who plays the kalimba and Josh, the guitarist and producer understand and enhance each other and in a few months they will share their musical vision on the first Phia album!
Although the two are very busy in the studio at the moment they took some time out and invited me to their Berlin kitchen. They arrived in the city with little more than a suitcase and had to piece together everything from scratch. The furniture and every single pot, plate and mug has its own story, mostly coming from friends who moved back home or flea markets, a unique space full of soul and personal memories.
Phia's family is very passionate about cooking, both her parents love to be creative in the kitchen. She chose to share a very special recipe with me that she used to bake with her mother when she was a child, a recipe rich in young kitchen memories! It's Mum's French Cake, a spongy and fruity cake which is as delicious as it is quick and easy to bake, a perfect candidate for those spontaneous late night (or early morning) baking sessions! Phia covered the cake with apples, but plums are another of her favourites for this recipe.
Mum's French Cake
"I chose a really simple cake recipe that my mum taught me. I’m not the most confident baker but this one is so simple. Depending on how large you want the cake, you take 1-3 eggs and weigh them, then put in the same weight of flour, melted butter and sugar. Then choose whatever fruit you want to put on top. My mum actually brought the recipe home from a French class she was in when I was younger. So the first time we made it we did it in French: “… deus oeufs ...” etc!"
For an 18cm / 7" springform pan you need
apple, quartered and thinly sliced, 1
organic eggs 2
weigh the eggs with their shells and measure the same weight of the following 3 ingredients:
plain flour
butter, melted
granulated sugar
plus
baking powder 1 tablespoon
a pinch of salt
Set the oven to 180°C / 355°F and butter the springform pan.
Combine the dry ingredients. Mix the eggs and butter for a few minutes till fluffy and add the dry mixture, mix until well combined. Pour the dough into the springform pan, arrange the apples in circles and bake for 25 minutes or until golden. Check with a skewer, it should come out clean. Serve warm!
You both grew up in Australia, what are your food memories?
Josh: Australia is a fairly wealthy country with really good weather and at various times a great influx of immigrants from around the world (although not currently because of our extreme rightwing government). This has meant that food is in wide variety and really great quality. You could find Indian, Afghan, Vietnamese, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Turkish, Thai, African, Lebanese, Japanese and a lot more (as well as modern fusion) to a beautiful standard all within close proximity. Restaurants just don’t survive if they’re not doing it the way it’s done in the home country. I guess we’re spoilt in a culinary way. This standard or commitment to food is still lagging very much in Germany which I find surprising because there are a lot of people from around the world living there. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist but I still have not found a decent curry.
What effect did the move to Berlin have on your cooking?
Phia: I’ve become a lot more confident since moving here! Last year I became really bored with the recipes that I knew, so I bought a couple of cookbooks and made some new meals. My favourite was Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty”, a vegetarian cookbook. He has this delicious soup made with chickpeas based on a Tuscan ribollita which I make a lot now.
What was the first dish you cooked on your own, what is your first cooking memory?
Josh: I started lifting weights after high school, trying to get buff. At the time I was known as “Mr. Vegetarian” because I was pretty big but still vegetarian. My memory of cooking by myself (that wasn’t frozen dim sims or pizza) was a taco filling that was packed with kidney beans and chickpeas for protein.
What are your favourite places to buy and enjoy food in Berlin?
Phia:We are really spoiled for choice in our part of Neukölln. All of these are within walking distance of us:Favourite coffee: Five Elephant, a super nice place in ReichenbergerstrasseDelicious and cheap tapas: Gaston on WeserstrasseBest gelati: Fräulein Frost on PanierstrasseFresh fruit and veggies: the turkish market on Maybachufer
Josh: Everything Sophia has said plus ‘Il Casolare’ - excellent pizza and atmosphere by the canal.
You live and work in Berlin at the moment, what are your upcoming projects?
Josh: The Phia album is still in full swing, still producing… we’ve mixed some of the tracks and still going over the editing and post-production stuff for quite a few of them. Final mixing should happen at the end of August.
I’ve been producing some music for a few other artists too.
I’m also working on my own project ‘Josh The Cat’. I sing songs, tell stories, dance a little bit with my guitar. Influenced by Bowie, TuneYards and Radiohead but people say it’s sounds a bit like The Whitest Boy Alive with a loop pedal and I look like the guitarist from Incubus. I recently heard The Whitest Boy Alive have disbanded so maybe there is an opening for me.
What or who inspired you to become musicians?
Phia:I grew up in a household filled with music. My mum and my sister and I used to sing three part harmonies, I learnt piano, sung in lots of choirs and did musicals. It never occurred to me that I could be a professional musician though. At school I thought I would be a teacher, or a writer. After high school I made a spontaneous decision to enter a music university rather than the law degree I had been accepted into. I thought I’d complete a year and then go back to academia, but I stayed!
Why did you choose Berlin as the place to live and work?
Josh: I wanted to shake up my life a little. I’d played in a few different bands in Melbourne ranging from Synthpop, FreeJazz to Instrumental soundscape. It was either NYC, Tokyo or Berlin and Berlin won. It’s a great base for branching out, there’s a lot of creatives to bounce off and I find the East meets West, the old crashing into the new, inspiring.
You just finished recording your album, what were your biggest influences during the writing and recording process?
Phia: The songs on the record definitely reflect the period of change of moving from Melbourne to Berlin. Some were written just before the move, and some after, and I think you can hear a continuous thread throughout the album of conflicted feelings change brings. The joy of expanding our experiences to the pull of homesickness.
Our lifestyle has been so different since moving to Berlin. The people we’ve met, the places we’ve toured, even just day-to-day living in Neukölln and having the luxury of working on music. You can definitely hear that on the album.
What did you choose to share on eat in my kitchen and why?
Phia:I chose a really simple cake recipe that my mum taught me. I’m not the most confident baker but this one is so simple. Depending on how large you want the cake, you take 1-3 eggs and weigh them, then put in the same weight of flour, melted butter and sugar. Then choose whatever fruit you want to put on top. My mum actually brought the recipe home from a French class she was in when I was younger. So the first time we made it we did it in French: “… deus oeufs ...” etc!
If you could choose one person to cook a meal for you, who and what would it be?
Phia: Merril Garbus from Tune-yards. I bet she’d have some killer recipes.
Josh: The RZA from Wu-Tang Clan comes to mind. It would be good to have a chat with him too.
You're going to have ten friends over for a spontaneous dinner, what will be on the table?
Phia:Definitely a big salad, maybe with orange and chickpeas, lots of wine, maybe some roast veggies or a baked dish.
Josh: Depends what is in the house. I find lentil soup very satisfying and hopefully the guests would too.
What was your childhood's culinary favourite and what is it now?
Phia: I wasn’t the most adventurous eater as a child so it was probably that Australian staple borrowed from our Italian immigrants - spaghetti bolognaise. Now I love eating new foods from the countries we go on tour. Last year I tried perogi in Poland for the first time, which was amazing.
Josh: My favorite food is Indian or Sri Lankan, I love the spices they use and the vivid flavours. Although I’m not vegetarian I prefer vegetarian food and this goes well for me with all the lentils, vegetables, chickpeas and the occasional paneer their food has. I don’t remember particularly liking food as a very young child but I guess I’ve liked any food from Asia since about the age of 12 or 13. I’ve always hated asparagus and it still makes me gag.
Do you prefer to cook on your own or together with others?
Phia: When I wasn’t so confident I needed to do it on my own, I didn’t like being watched! But now I love learning from others and it is fun to cook together.
Josh: I think someone who is good with food generally needs patience or at the very least a sensibility for how all the elements interact. I don’t really have that. Or perhaps my problem is that I usually try to ignore I’m hungry until I am absolutely ravenous and by that point I have no patience for preparing things properly. So cooking for myself comes out of necessity and cooking with others is probably more fun because it has probably been planned ahead. By others, I mean Sophia, who has good ideas generally, plans ahead and never allows herself to get so hungry as to become irrational and hasty as I do.
Which meals do you prefer, improvised or planned?
Phia: I’m definitely a meal planner - no improvising in the kitchen for me!
Josh: I would admit that conceptually a planned meal should work out the best but I haven’t properly tried that.
Which meal would you never cook again?
Josh: When I was at university I was known by my housemates for my signature dish: “bachelor’s special” which ingredients consisted of pretty much everything cooked in a saucepan served over some sort of carbohydrate. I think I’ll leave that one in the past.
Thank you Phia and Josh!
Here you can listen to Phia and Josh's music and find out when the album will be released: www.listentophia.com
