Despite being a classic dish from childhoods across generations and around the country, crumble isn’t something I’m tempted to make that often.
Growing up with an apple-farmer for a granny, crumble was (unsurprisingly) always made using fruit from her farm and there’s something about the texture of stewed apple that I’m just not that keen on. Whenever a crumble was served, I’d accept the portion offer, add extra ice cream then proceed to eat my way through the crunchy oat crust, leaving a lonely pile of fruit at the bottom of my bowl.
As I’ve got older, I’m pleased to report that I’ve learned to enjoy cooked fruit in most forms. Having said that, old habits die hard, so in an attempt to branch out beyond eating spoonfuls of crunchy crumble topping on its own, I decided to make this cake.
Fresh figs are what I found on the off-chance this weekend (perhaps the last I’ll eat this season and bursting at their silky seams with juicy pink flesh), but you could easily substitute cherries, blackberries or even apples (!). The fruit layer provides a sticky sweet foil to the nutty crumble without being too wet, sitting in turn on a base of wholemeal spelt sponge.
We ate this crumble cake at my parents’ house after a rib-sticking Sunday lunch of rare roast beef with Yorkshire puddings. Served with orange zest and vanilla whipped cream it was a surprisingly light dessert (at least enough for us all to eat a second slice) and I can imagine it would also be delicious eaten with your mid-morning cup of tea.
Fig & Almond Crumble Cake (adapted from Annie Bell’s Baking Bible)
(makes one 20cm round cake)
Ingredients:
For the cake
100g unsalted butter, diced and softened
100g golden caster sugar
1 large free range egg
90ml whole milk (or almond milk)
125g wholemeal spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
Zest of one small lemon
325g fresh figs, halved
2 tsp runny honey
For the crumble topping
45g wholemeal spelt flour
45g ground almonds
50g golden caster sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
90g unsalted butter, chilled & diced
20g rolled oats
20g flaked almonds
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Grease a 20cm cake tin with a removable base and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a medium bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg and then incorporate the milk. Sift in the flour and baking powder, add the lemon zest then stir carefully to combine before spooning carefully into the prepared tin.
To make the crumble, blitz the flour, ground almonds, sugar, cinnamon and butter in the bowl of a food processor until large crumbs form. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the oats and almonds.
Place the figs cut side up on top of the cake batter. Drizzle with the honey then top with the crumble mixture, patting down slightly. Bake for 50 – 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven, run a knife round the outside of the tin then set aside to cool.
Delicious with a cup of tea or served, as we did, with whipped cream stirred through with vanilla seeds and orange zest.
This crumble cake looks beautiful – good way for me to use the end of season figs- and anything with almonds is always good. Use of spelt sounds good…always unsure how to successfully use it beyond loaves.
Love the blog- thank you
Ah, thank you so much! So pleased you like the cake and the spelt flour base is lovely- highly recommend it 🙂
Gorgeous – what a great use of figs. I’ve never seen a fig crumble cake before, but it sounds yummy.
Love that you’ve used spelt flour. It looks so wholesome. And so yummy.
Looks gorgeous! I haven’t had a wholemeal cake in ages and I don’t think I’ve ever had a wholemeal spelt one. I should probably look into that. I definitely haven’t made the most of fig season, either. Fail.
Thanks Emma! The wholemeal cake came out lovely and light which provided a really nice balance against the crumbly, buttery topping. I bought the most enormous bag of figs this weekend – am sure they’ll be disappearing soon 🙁
Figs and almonds, so decadent and gorgeous…a beautiful way to eat the seasons x
Oh, anything with a crumbly topping automatically becomes My Favorite Dessert. The spelt flour sounds really good, too.
Cake looks delicious! Lovely photos too. Are you using a different camera?
Nope, same camera for the last year or so… But so pleased you like the pics! Think I just got lucky with the light 🙂
Great photo!
Your cake looks delicious, love the crumble topping!
This looks so good, I love crumble cakes and will defs be trying this wholesome treat! One question, you mention sugar when making the crumble but I can’t see it in the crumble ingredients…?
What would I do without my wonderful readers? Total typo fail, so sorry about that – it’s 50g of sugar, I’ve updated the post now 🙂 x
GAH! I miss my daily fig diet now I am in London. This is my kind of cake!
I was/am all about the crumble topping too although I have learnt to embrace the fruit at the bottom. I almost made a very similar cake at the weekend actually, definitely a good excuse for more of that crunchy oaty goodness on top!
I think it’s the wet food thing again – I love that we had such similar (and bizarre) tastes when we were younger!
The figs, and the crumble cake, both sound delightful. I’m also a eating crumble by the spoonful person, but with figs like these I’d be gobbling up the fruit layer too.
Love the recipe Kate! I’ve recently started baking with spelt flour so I can’t wait to try it in a crumble xx
I was reading your post and the first thing that came to mind was a craving for apple crumble which I haven’t had in a while. Then I read further and now you have hooked me in with your crumble cake, something I have never heard of or tried before. This looks delicious and I will definitely give it a try.
It’s all about the crumble cake 😉 Enjoy!
I’m also a more crumble less fruit type! I’ve also recently become a big fan of spelt flour, figs I’m not so sure about but this cake does make them look very tempting 🙂
Hooray for extra spoonfuls of crumble 🙂 And do try the figs, they just taste sweet and sticky in this cake if you’re not a fan of them fresh.
YUUUUUUM. I wish figs weren’t so expensive here! This looks deeeelicious.
Beautiful pictures! It looks so good!
I definitely could eat a slice of your crumble cake for breakfast – this is just the sort of thing I’m craving these days! I bet it would be delicious with cherries or apples;) too.
xoxo
E
I would never think of baking figs in a cake, they never usually last that long around me but this looks great
Hi I made this the crumble topping doesn’t miss the sugar my tast testers thought it had a fab texture but needed more flavour am thinking of doing apple drizzled with a spot of maple syrup and loads more cinnamon. I love your blogs and have saved everyone only found it as I follow Nigel Slater on twitter and he mentioned you .
Thanks Sarah. It’s always fun to experiment & I love the sound of your version. Happy baking!
Bookmarking this. Looks too tempting.
I just love the look of this cake! Especially the crumble topping, and well, anything with figs immediately has my attention. I’ve not tried using spelt flour yet. I’ll have to track some down here and start experimenting.
I love a good crumble cake especially when it features delicious fresh figs!
I can only imagine the sticky, gooey fig jam resulting in this cake when it came out of the oven. This would be the perfect morning cake with a cup of tea for me!
It would be lovely in the morning – light and not too sweet with sticky figs and nutty spelt flour. In fact, I wish I had a slice in front of me right now!
Almonds and figs go so well together, good mediterranean friends! This looks delicious too.
I’ll admit that I actually a real-deal crumble is one of my favorite desserts (as long as the filling isn’t mushy). But a crumble CAKE with a sticky-sweet fig filling? Well that just sounds amazing! It’s funny that you use spelt. I love using spelt for my crisp or crumble toppings because I love the nutty flavor that it provides.
I always find it so interesting how palates evolve, yet we do stick to some quirks we had about food growing up. This is all favorites put together in a cake! Figs and crumble…enough said.
This cake looks divine. I recently had a piece of blackberry and apple crumble cake but the combination of ripe fig, a hearty wholemeal spelt sponge and a nutty crumble sounds even better. Congratulations on your wedding
Pingback: Fig crumble cake | Bake n Shake
A crumble cake is just the perfect Autumnal bake and what a delightfully seasonal combination of flavours too. PS LOVED the wedding pics! Big ‘awwww’ headin you way!
Pingback: Baked Blackberry, Blueberry & Coconut Crunch Oatmeal | thelittleloaf