Estonian Apple Crumble Cake

Apple Crumble Cake

A weekend deserves a sweet treat. Even if the extra kilos that have accumulated around the hip-waist line like a life saving ring since Christmas and New Year’s festivities. A piece of cake fresh from the oven to keep up the good spirit eaten with moderation is allowed.

In Switzerland January is the season for storage apples and pears.

In Estonia it is the season for storage apples. Pears don’t store well in Estonia and one can’t find locally grown pears on the grocery store shelves, at least I think I have never seen any. Even locally grown apples in winter months are something that with the spreading fashion of “Grown and produced in Estonia”- food that is gaining popularity amongst foodies and home cooks are only recently becoming more widely available. The price versus Polish imported apples is often times higher, but the availability is a positive sign and overtime hopefully the price will respond to competition.

Apple Crumble Cake

For the dough:
125g soft butter
100g sugar
1 big egg (63g+)
250g plain wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
For the filling:
Ca 5 big sweet apples (eg. Golden Delicious), so less added sugar is needed
For the crumble:
75g butter
5-6 tablespoons sugar
150g flour
a pinch of baking powder
0.5 -1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix well the butter and sugar with a hand mixer, add the egg and mix again. Stir the baking powder and salt into the flour and add to the sweet butter mixture. Mix everything together until the dough has formed. Form it into a ball with your hands and keep refrigerated until you prepare the apples.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Peel the apples, if you prefer, clean the seeds out and cut the apples into smaller cubes.

Fit the 26cm diameter baking ring form with baking paper and spread the dough evenly on the bottom. Precook the bottom for 15 minutes.

In the meanwhile, for the crumble melt the butter. Mix the flour with sugar, baking powder and cinnamon and pour the melted butter on the flour mix. Form crumbles with a knife or your hands quickly.

Spread the apples and then the crumble on the cake and bake in the middle of the oven for 35-45 minutes until the crumble starts to brown slightly on top.

Apple Crumble Cake (Estonian: Õuna-purukook, German: Apfel-Streuselkuchen)

A number of crumble recipes call for cold butter for the crumble but whenever I use cold butter the butter in my crumble just melts and the result is not very attractive or crispy. Therefore I use melted butter. If anyone has tips of how the crumble recipe with cold butter stays crumbly and bakes into a crispy topping, please share.