Happy Birthday Baba 2011

Today was a very special  day – my grandpa grew one year older 🙂
Everyone loves birthdays and my grandpa is someone who doesn’t seem to ever spoil himself – this year I decided to spoil him for him! (Not that I didn’t last year with that Carrot Cake of mine :P)

Anyway, it is not easy I suppose to spoil him though because chocolate is a very rare treat which he enjoys off occasion, but usually not a lot of. And if you know anything about me, by now which you do, I have to say that my most decadent dishes are essentially all chocolate based (perhaps my secret OCD – no, not secret I agree…)

So then I went to my greatest source, Exclusively Food, to find a non-chocolate recipe which was still decadent and worth spoiling my sweet granddaddy with and surprisingly, came away with this fruity, one bowl (so to speak) and quite light dessert: An Apple Blueberry Crumble Cake.

Initially, after making it and letting it cool, I was very apprehensive about how it would cut, and turn out taste-wise since it seemed very soft and overly moist. And true, it was a little bit hard to cut and refrigeration did not help in its softness but what a cake… I cannot stress this enough.

The sour-cream based cake was thick and almost spongy with a delicate texture and soft, melt in your mouth quality which actually reminded me a little of shortbread biscuits, though the butter quantity in this cake is quite decent relatively!
Although you can use homemade stewed apple, I had canned apple mixed with delicious various spices lying in my freezer from my apple pie and simply thawed and use that instead. Matched with the cake it was simply fantastic.
My daddy actually found it a very different cake and due to its moist nature and tender texture, actually compared it to the likes of a trifle dessert 🙂

Here are some tips, tricks and adaptations of mine on this recipe which could notch it up for my next time:

• I used frozen raspberries since I already had them in my freezer – do not thaw if using any frozen berries
• I think canned peaches or other soft, canned fruit could easily replace the apple and add a different taste – e.g. add desiccated coconut into the cake and put drained, canned pineapple in place of the apple
• Make sure your cake batter layer is very thick – a reason for my softness was that I used a 60-40 ratio of cake to apple filling layer and it moistened up too much
• Use a thin but well spread layer of the apple filling to avoid too much moistness and softness in the cake
• If making stewed apples from scratch, after it has been made and cooled, add in a dash of allspice and cinnamon and nutmeg – also I prefer using half brown and half caster sugar during the stewing process 🙂
• I increase the vanilla essence to 2 tsp and in the crumble, added a touch of allspice along with the cinnamon

We had this ice cream topped with a side of this fantastic Coles Home-Brand Christmas Pudding Ice Cream and it was simply divine.

Happy Birthday Baba 2011 😀
Hope you had a wonderful day!!!

P.S – My crumble got a litte soggy and didn’t stay crisp due to the juices released by the berries and apple filling – does anyone know how to prevent this and keep the crumble crunchy like in my Pear Pecan Walnut Crumble Cake? Is it adding nuts to the topping?
Let me know if you can 🙂 – Thank you!!!