The topic of “Crunch” has given me grief from the start. I simply could not think of anything crunchy that I hadn’t already posted on the site. I also did not want to go deep fried. This sent me on a journey before coming up with the Streusel Butter Cake.
I remembered a beautiful cake my mother made when I was little. About two weeks ago I asked my mother if she remembered the cake. I didn’t know what it was called it just had a crunchy yummy topping and she used to make it a lot when I was about 4.
I explained she made it in the circular pan, and it had a buttery crumbly topping. She vaguely remembered, but couldn’t think what the cake was called, or where I could find the recipe.
After much research I found the cake was called a Streusel Butter Cake, and I do remember mum calling it that when I was a kid. I have come up with this recipe from my research. I don’t know if it will taste like mums cake but I will be turning her recipe books, files and folders upside down next time I am at her place.
Streusel Butter Cake
Steusel Topping
Ingredients:
- ½ t/s cinnamon
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 40gm cold butter
- 50gm coarsely chopped walnuts
- In a food processor pulse butter cinnamon and sugar until it resembles breadcrumbs. Very briefly add walnuts.
- Refrigerate the crumble until it is needed for the cake topping.
Butter Cake
Ingredients:
- 120gm butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 t/s vanilla
- 2 cup plain flour
- 3 t/s baking powder
- 160 ml milk
Method:
- Preheat oven to 160C/320F.
- Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla in stand mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well.
- Sift the flour and baking powder. Alternate between adding flour and milk to the butter mix until both are added.
- Pour into a greased spring form pan or muffin tins.
- Evenly sprinkle the streusel topping over the cake.
- Bake for 30mins or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.
I had forgotten how much I like raw cake batter. I highly recommend cooking these cakes while the kids are at school so that you can lick the beaters. Yum, it is lucky I put the cakes in the oven first or I might have been tempted to continue eating.
While I was adding the Streusel topping I was starting to suspect I may have a problem. The crumbs seemed too dry to make the buttery topping I remembered. Nevertheless, I added the topping and crossed my fingers.
Watching the cakes cooking it was pretty obvious they were not going to become crunchy and lush like the ones I remembered from my childhood. The aroma of the cakes baking was magic, but so far as the topic “Crunch” goes, as my teenage son would say “Epic fail mum”.
I was less than pleased with the crumbly topping and dumped them upside down on a tea towel.Thankfully the taste got a thumbs up from the hubby, so it hasn’t been a complete loss. I have taken the flour component out of the Streusel topping and the second time round the topping worked much better.
I will still be looking for my mother’s recipe.
