Gooseberry crumble cake...

It's summer. And what comes with it, is an abundance of fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables. No, I'm NOT complaining! What's more, I'm always waiting for this season with anticipation. I like trying making new things, dishes with fruit, but also those that we're all familiar with. This time it was the gooseberry. Actually, a whole bag of it! And it came to me for free. I already made the gooseberry jam (more of a marmalade actually) and I still had almost half a kilo of the fruit left. 

Quick browse through few of my cookbooks and I settled for Nigel Slater's gooseberry crumble cake. Something down the lines of a coffee tray cake, which is quite popular in the States.

I liked the different textures. Soft and light sponge like bottom, then sharp fruit, all topped with crunchy, sweet crumble. I think that other seasonal fruit, like blackcurrants, blackberries or blue berries, would work well here too! I made few slight changes to make the recipe vegan ;)

How to make it...

Ingredients:

For the filling
- 180 g vegan butter, softened (like Flora)
- 90 g golden caster sugar
- 90 g light muscovado sugar
- 2 flax eggs (2 tablespoons ground flax seeds with 6 tablespoons water, whisk together until thick and foamy)
- 80 g ground almonds
- 150 g self-raising flour
- vanilla extract, a few drops
- 300 g gooseberries, top and tailed

For the crumble:
- 100 g plain flour
- 80 g vegan butter (Flora etc)
- 2 tablespoon caster sugar

Method:

- Preheat the oven to 180C (360F). Line the base of a 22 cm round cake tin with baking parchment.
- For the filling: Beat the butter, caster and muscovado sugar in a food mixer for a good eight to 10 minutes until pale and fluffy. 

- Add the flax egg into the mixture with an electric beater on slow or by hand. 

- Fold in the ground almonds and flour then add the vanilla extract. 

- Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin and smooth it flat. 

- Scatter the gooseberries on top.

- For the crumble topping: Blitz the flour and butter to crumbs in a food processor. 

- Add the sugar and mix lightly. 

- Remove the mixing bowl and add a few drops of water. 

- Shake the bowl a little – or run a fork through the mixture – so that some of the crumbs stick together like small pebbles. This will give a more interesting mix of textures. 

- Scatter this loosely over the gooseberries.
- Bake for about an hour, checking if it’s done with a skewer. 

- Remove the cake from the oven and set aside. Leave to cool completely before cutting.

Smacznego!


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