This is based on the National Trust’s Killerton cider and apple cake, given the crumble top treatment. The original cake uses cider made on the 200-year-old press at the Killerton estate in Devon, and flour from Clyston Mill on the estate – if these aren’t to hand use your preferred cider and plain white flour.
Makes A 20CM CAKE
1 large cooking apple, peeled, cored and chopped
50g sultanas
150ml cider (or cold tea)
110g butter, softened
110g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
225g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Grated zest of 1 lemon
FOR THE TOPPING
70g plain flour
40g porridge oats
30g walnuts, finely chopped
100g golden caster or soft pale brown sugar
1 teaspoon mixed spice
80g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
Put the apple, sultanas and cider into a bowl. Mix well and leave to macerate for about 30 minutes.
To make the topping, mix the flour, oats, walnuts, sugar and spice. Drizzle in the butter, stirring with a fork to make a crumbly mixture. Chill.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Grease or line a deep 20 cm diameter cake tin.
Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and stir in. Add the lemon zest, the macerated apples, sultanas and cider and mix well. Scrape the mixture into the cake tin, levelling the top.
Break up the topping mixture into small pieces and distribute in an even layer over the cake mixture. Bake for 45–60 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin before turning out and serving.
From the humblest cottage to the grandest stately home, nearly all households in England, Wales and Northern Ireland once grew an apple tree, or two, or dozens. They provided fruit for the table, for cooking, and for cider (for the latter, visit National Trust sites in the south-west, especially Barrington Court in Somerset). Hundreds of varieties developed, some known only in very restricted localities, others hugely successful and grown in large commercial orchards. Although the oldest varieties have a history that goes back to the seventeenth century or earlier, interest in plants and gardens in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries vastly expanded the range of apples available.
Gardeners and growers vied with each other to raise novel varieties for dessert or kitchen, or give interesting nuances of texture or flavour. One example among many was the Egremont Russet, a dessert apple with a rich, nutty flavour and matte brown patches of ‘russet’ on its skin, thought to have been raised at Petworth (West Sussex) in the late nineteenth century and named for the Egremont family, the owners of the estate.
Different varieties have different seasons for ripening. Although they are considered autumn fruit, some apples are available by July. Others are ‘keepers’, picked late and ripened slowly in cool, frost-proof stores. By clever planting, Victorian gardeners ensured that apples were available in every month except May and June. Many houses had a space for keeping them in winter; the Old Apple Store at Brockhampton in Herefordshire is now the tea room.
Lots of National Trust houses have apple orchards, which are lovely places to visit. In spring enjoy the burst of pink-white blossom, and later in the year the bounty of ripening fruit. Autumn is an ideal time to find out more, as many host Apple Day events. Non-commercial varieties of the fruit are displayed and can often be tasted, a revelation after the limited number of commercial ones stocked by supermarkets. They are often for sale, allowing the cook to experiment; so it’s well worth going along, tasting the fruit on offer and talking to the experts – and maybe coming away with a bag of fruit.
National Trust locations notable for apples (among many) include Clumber Park (Nottinghamshire), home to an orchard with over 72 varieties; Croome (Worcestershire), which has old cider apple trees and newer plantings of historic varieties from the 1700s and 1800s; the diamond-trained espaliered apple trees at Coughton Court (Warwickshire), beautiful displays of the gardener’s skill; Gunby (Lincolnshire), where 54 varieties are grown and one can walk a pergola line of apple trees; Cotehele (Cornwall), whose historic orchard boasts many rare varieties; Errdig (North Wales), home to a long-running autumn apple festival; Acorn Bank (Cumbria), which has a recently established orchard and a collection of over 100 local varieties; Nunnington Hall (North Yorkshire), with apple trees planted on either side of the front lawn; and Ardress House in County Armargh, where Apple Sundays – days celebrating, cooking and eating the fruit – are held in the autumn.
Apples and apple-related customs run deep in the British Isles. Avalon, of the King Arthur myth, means the Isle of Apples, and many games relating to apples are traditional to Halloween. Costermonger, an old word for a street seller of fruit, originally meant an apple seller (from the word ‘costard’, the name of an apple well known in the Middle Ages). And to be the apple of someone’s eye is, of course, to be adored. One very special apple tree, an example of an ancient variety known as the Flower of Kent (whose fruit served as both a cooking and an eating apple), can be seen at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire: perhaps if Isaac Newton had not been sitting under the tree pondering why objects always fall to the ground, the theory of gravity would have taken somewhat longer to emerge.
Recipes of this type are sometimes called Dutch, Polish or Irish apple tart or apple cake. Who do they really belong to? What matters is that they are good.
Serves 8
300g (made weight) shortcrust pastry (bought or home-made)
FOR THE TOPPING
130g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
90g soft pale brown sugar
120g butter, cut into cubes
FOR THE FILLING
About 1kg apples – an eating variety such as Cox’s Orange Pippin
Juice of 1 lemon
100g granulated sugar
20g plain flour
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon demerara sugar
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
On a floured work surface, roll out the pastry and ease it into a pie dish about 23cm in diameter. Trim and flute the edges. Chill while you prepare the topping and filling.
To make the topping, mix the flour and brown sugar. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
To make the filling, peel, quarter and core the apples. Cut them into thin slices and toss in lemon juice. Mix the granulated sugar, flour and cinnamon and stir into the apples. Pile this mixture into the pastry case, heaping it up in the centre. Distribute the topping evenly over the apple mixture, and finish by sprinkling over the demerara sugar.
Bake for 45–60 minutes or until cracks appear in the surface of the crumble and juice starts to bubble through, indicating that the apples are soft. If the top is browning too fast, turn the heat down and cook for a little longer.
Leave to cool for at least 2 hours before eating. Sour cream is good with this.
‘Total self indulgence’ is how Sarah Edington describes the apple version of this tart in National Trust Classic British Cooking.
Serves 6–8
FOR THE PASTRY
225g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
4 tablespoons caster sugar
110g butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
4 egg yolks
FOR THE FILLING
50g butter
75g soft brown sugar
150ml golden syrup
150ml double cream
2 drops vanilla essence
900g cooking pears, such as Conference
FOR THE CRUMBLE
110g plain flour
110g porridge oats
75g butter, cut into cubes
75g soft brown sugar
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Butter a 25 cm diameter flan tin.
First, make the pastry: sift the flour and sugar together, rub in the butter and stir in the egg yolks to bind the dough. Roll out on a floured work surface and line the flan tin. Prick the bottom and then chill.
To make the filling, melt the butter in a saucepan over a very low heat, add the sugar and golden syrup and heat very gently, stirring well to dissolve the sugar, for 5 minutes. Stir in the cream and the vanilla, beat well until the sauce is smooth, then leave to cool until lukewarm.
Peel, core and slice the pears thinly. Arrange over the pastry. Pour the filling over the pears.
To make the crumble, mix the flour and oats and rub in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Stir in the sugar and then spread the mixture evenly over the filling. Bake for 30–40 minutes, until the top is golden brown and crunchy.
Pears, like apples, are an important orchard tree in Britain. They come in many different varieties for eating and cooking, and provide juice for a fermented alcoholic drink known as perry.
Their geographical spread as a common fruit tree is more limited than that of apples as they flower early in the spring. For the gardener this leads to much anxiety about frost and poor cropping. They grow best in areas where spring tends to come a little earlier, such as the Severn Valley and Somerset, but this did not stop households in other areas growing them, often trained on walls or wires in sheltered kitchen gardens. The walled garden at Beningbrough Hall (North Yorkshire) has particularly nice examples of this, the pears trained on arches over the main path; the Round Garden at Cliveden (Buckinghamshire) follows a similar principle. Another National Trust garden that includes pear trees is Dyrham Park (Gloucestershire, traditional pear-growing country): visit in the autumn for pear-related events.
As a fruit for cooked desserts, pears lack the sweet–acid balance that makes apples such a success, but make up for it with their texture and sweet perfumed flesh. They combine well with apples, quinces, almonds or hazelnuts, and ginger, especially stem ginger. Pear trees grow tall and can be conspicuous in the landscape. In the past, these fruit were much more important for cooking and preserving than they are now. There are many traditional varieties with a long history and localised specimens. A hard variety used for cooking and known as Warden pears (named for Wardon Abbey in Bedfordshire, where they were grown) was important in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: ‘I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies’, says the clown in Shakespeare’s play A Winter’s Tale. The old pear variety known as Black Worcester may be an example of the Warden type; see them growing in the orchard at Croome, near Worcester.
Pink forced rhubarb is lovely in this, but outdoor rhubarb can be used later in the year.
Serves 6–8
300g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
100g icing sugar
Grated zest of 1 orange (keep the orange for the filling)
Seeds scraped from ½ a vanilla pod
150g butter, cut into cubes
1 egg, beaten
600g rhubarb (trimmed weight), washed
1 tablespoon cornflour
60–80g caster sugar
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
You will need a 25 cm diameter flan tin with a removable base.
Mix the flour, icing sugar, orange zest and vanilla. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add most of the egg to the mixture, stirring and pulling the pieces together to make a dough. Try not to make it sticky, but add all the egg if it seems to be dry. Once it has come together, chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Take a generous third of the dough and roll out on a floured work surface to make a circle big enough to line the flan tin. Ease the dough into the tin, prick the bottom with a fork and trim the edges. Line with a square of greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes (keep an eye on it and turn down the heat if it shows signs of browning at the edges).
If the rhubarb stems are thick, cut in half lengthways, then cut across in 1cm lengths. Cut the remaining peel, including the white pith, off the orange and use a small knife to slip the flesh out of the segments, then add them to the rhubarb. Add the cornflour and sugar to taste, and stir together. Pile the fruit mixture into the baked tart case and then crumble the remaining pastry mix over the top.
Bake for 30–40 minutes or until the rhubarb is soft. If the pastry at the edges is browning too quickly, protect it with strips of foil.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 15–20 minutes before serving with crème fraîche, whipped cream or crème anglaise.
This unusual German cake has a yeast dough base and a streusel crumble topping. If using dried yeast, follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Warmth is essential for the dough to rise well.
Makes 12 PIECES
15g fresh yeast (available from supermarket bakeries)
250g strong plain white flour, plus extra for handling
75g granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
30g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
1 egg, beaten
A few drops vanilla essence
FOR THE PLUM LAYER
About 750g plums
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
sugar (optional)
FOR THE STREUSEL TOPPING
60g plain flour
80g soft pale brown sugar
60g butter, melted
Warm 60ml of milk until hand hot and add the yeast. Set aside for a few minutes until frothy.
Mix the flour, sugar and salt, preferably in the bowl of a food mixer or processor. (This is a heavy mixture to handle without a machine – it is too soft to knead, and has to be beaten with the hand.) Add the yeast mixture, the melted butter, the egg and the vanilla. Mix or process to make a thick mixture in between a dough and a batter, adding a little more milk if it seems dry. Don’t over-process. Cover the mixture and leave in a warm place to rise for about an hour.
Stone the plums and cut in eighths lengthways. Lavishly butter a shallow baking tin, at least 18 x 30cm, preferably a little larger.
When the dough mixture has doubled in size, flour your fingers and ease it into the buttered tin. Pat out the dough, dipping your fingers in flour every so often, to make an even layer that fills the base of the tin. Pack the pieces of plum in close-set lines across the top. Dust with the cinnamon. If the fruit seems sour or under-ripe, add a little sugar, but be cautious as this can produce too much juice. Leave in a warm place to prove for about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
To make the streusel topping, mix the flour and sugar and gradually add the butter, stirring all the time, to make a crumbly mixture.
After proving, scatter the streusel over the plums in an even layer. Bake for 30–35 minutes until the dough is golden brown and the plums are cooked and exuding juice.
Leave to cool in the tin for at least 10 minutes, longer if possible, before cutting into 12 pieces. Serve alone or with crème fraîche.
Streusel is a central European type of crumble. The name derives from the German verb streuen, to strew. It contains a lower proportion of flour than British crumble mixture and is usually flavoured with cinnamon. In Germany and central Europe it is used for cakes, scattered in layers in the middle and over the top.
Streusel has become extremely popular in the USA. As a topping on coffee cakes (semi-sweet cakes eaten with coffee, often for breakfast – not cakes flavoured with coffee) and on muffins and cheesecakes it is something of an obsession, with home bakers vying to make the best. It is also marbled through cake batter, crumbled over creamy desserts and used to top apple pies.
This is loosely based on an apple streusel cake from Festive Baking in Austria, Germany and Switzerland by Sarah Kelly, a wonderful book for anyone interested in baking.
Serves 8
FOR THE FILLING
500g gooseberries
30g caster sugar
1 teaspoon cornflour
2 teaspoons Sambuca, Pernod or other anise-flavoured spirit or liqueur (optional)
FOR THE CAKE
230g plain flour
100g caster sugar
20g custard powder
Seeds scraped from ½ a vanilla pod
1 large egg
1½ teaspoons baking powder
130g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
200ml ready-made custard (home-made or bought from the chilled cabinet)
Icing sugar and whipped cream to serve (optional)
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Grease and line the base and sides of a deep 20cm cake tin with a removable base.
To make the filling (this can be done in advance), put the gooseberries into a pan with a tablespoon of water and cook gently until soft: they will inevitably break up. Simmer gently to evaporate some of the liquid. Add the sugar; mix the cornflour with a teaspoon of water and stir in. Add the Sambuca, if using, and leave to cool.
For the cake, mix the flour, sugar, custard powder and vanilla. Beat the egg with the baking powder and pour into the centre of the mixture. Pour in the butter in a thin stream, stirring constantly to make a crumbly dough. Take a generous half of this and press it over the bottom of the lined cake tin. Bring it up the sides a little. Spoon the gooseberry mixture over the top, then spoon the custard over this. It’s better not to take it too close to the edge. Crumble the remaining cake mixture over the top.
Place the cake tin on an oven tray and bake for 40–45 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for at least 30 minutes, longer if possible. Remove from the tin and peel off the baking paper. Sift icing sugar over and serve with whipped cream.
Gooseberries grow easily in Britain. Visitors to Hanbury Hall, near Droitwich (Worcestershire) in early summer may be fortunate enough to buy some of the ones grown in the walled garden there. They come early in the year, around the end of May, a welcome sight in the past when little other seasonal fruit was available. They are a fruit with a quirky history, something of a British, or more specifically English, speciality. In the eighteenth century they were grown in the gardens of large houses for making preserves, but they also became a standby of cottage gardens and a fruit that was grown competitively by working men.
In the middle of this century, weavers in Lancashire founded gooseberry clubs. These soon spread to Cheshire, the Midlands and Yorkshire and in the nineteenth century over 150 gooseberry shows were held at different locations. The aim of the competition was to produce the heaviest berry, weighed down to half a grain in the troy weight system (which is principally used for precious stones and weighs down to minute fractions of a gram). Annual gooseberry shows are still held in Cheshire, and one also survives at Egton Bridge in Yorkshire. Fortunately for the cook, there were also plenty of ordinary berries for preserving and for puddings.
Gooseberries are one of the best fruits for crumbles, breaking down to a rough purée with a tart acidity that combines deliciously with sweet crumble toppings. Vanilla, elderflower and aniseed liqueurs go well with them, as do creamy or custardy accompaniments.
A favourite in Lombardy, this is a cross between shortbread and crumble. Adding fruit is not traditional, but the combination of quince and rose water is delicious with the cake.
Makes A 23CM CAKE
1 quince, weighing about 350g
75g caster sugar
1 teaspoon rose water
Grappa or vin santo, to serve (optional)
FOR THE CAKE
100g almonds, skin on
100g plain flour
100g cornmeal/polenta (quick-cook polenta is fine)
50g granulated sugar
50g soft brown sugar
Pinch of salt
100g butter, cut into cubes
1 egg yolk
A few drops almond essence
6–8 almonds, skin on, to decorate
Preheat the oven to 160°C.
Line a shallow cake tin about 23cm in diameter with baking paper.
Cut the quince into eight and remove the core (no need to peel). Put the pieces in a small baking dish and add the caster sugar and 100ml water. Cover and bake for 1 hour, then uncover and bake for a further hour or until the quince is soft and a pink-gold colour. Add more water if it seems to be drying out, but by the end of cooking only about 2 tablespoons should be left. Remove from the oven, leave to cool a little and remove the skin. Mash the flesh with the cooking juices and the rose water.
While the quince cooks, prepare the cake: this is best done in a food processor. Roughly chop the almonds. Mix the flour, cornmeal, sugars and salt and add to the almonds. Process briefly to mix. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then add the egg yolk and almond essence and blend briefly. (If you don’t have a food processor, mix the flour, cornmeal, sugars and salt, and rub in the butter. Chop the almonds roughly and stir in, then add the egg yolk and essence).
Pack about half the mixture over the base of the prepared tin. Spread the quince mixture over, leaving a clear border of about 2cm around the edge. Cover with the rest of the mixture, squeezing a little to make irregular lumps on top.
Scatter 6–8 whole almonds over the top.
Bake for 40–50 minutes, until golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely. Break into pieces, rather than cutting it.
The Italians like to sprinkle this cake with grappa or drink a glass of vin santo with it, but it’s also good with tea or coffee.
Most countries have some kind of pastry or cake in their repertoire which is short, crisp and crumbly (think Scottish shortbread). Sbrisolona, also known as sbriciolata, is the north Italian version. It is crisp and extremely crumbly – and very moreish. Originally associated with Mantova (Mantua) in Lombardy, it is now found in the pasticceria (pastry shops) in many towns in the surrounding area. The recipe is unusual because it includes cornmeal among the ingredients. Locals claim that it originated as something baked by poor people and that almonds and generous amounts of butter were added to the recipe by wealthier families.
The name comes from a dialect word that means crumb or crumbly. The texture is reminiscent of shortbread, but the cornmeal gives it an interesting, slightly gritty texture and a distinctive flavour. Fruit fillings are not traditional, although there are some recipes in Italian for sbrisolona with apple filling. Try softening some chocolate hazelnut spread over hot water and using a generous layer of this in place of the quince.
Crumb cakes, also known as coffee cakes (made to accompany coffee) are very popular in the USA. Eat with morning coffee, or as an afternoon teatime treat.
Makes 9 GENEROUS PIECES
FOR THE CRUMB TOPPING
160g plain flour
75g soft pale brown sugar
75g granulated sugar
1 scant teaspoon ground cinnamon
100g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
FOR THE CAKE
75g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
1 egg
150g plain flour (it is worth seeking out extra-fine sponge flour for this)
1½ teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
150ml buttermilk or natural yoghurt
50g dark chocolate chips
25g candied orange peel, cut into very fine dice
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line a 20 cm square cake tin with baking paper.
To make the crumb topping, mix together the flour, both sugars, and the cinnamon. Drizzle in the melted butter, stirring with a fork to make a crumbly mixture. Set aside.
To make the cake, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat for another 2–3 minutes. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and add in thirds to the creamed mixture, alternating with the buttermilk or yoghurt and stirring well between each addition: the result should be a soft but stiff-ish batter (add a little milk if it seems over-stiff). Fold in the chocolate chips and orange peel.
Spoon the batter into the cake tin, levelling it with a knife. Spread the crumb mixture over the top as evenly as possible. Bake for 35–45 minutes or until a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean. If it is browning too quickly, protect the surface with a piece of baking paper. If there is any doubt about how well the cake is done, turn down the heat a little and cook for 5–10 minutes longer.
Leave to cool in the tin for at least 30 minutes before removing and cutting.
