Maple & Walnut Cake

It’s that time of year again, temperatures are falling, nights are drawing in and The Great British Bake off is on the telly. With all that in mind we thought we’d share with you a new recipe we’ve tried from The Hummingbird Bakery ‘Home Sweet Home’ book. This one is really for those of you with a sweet tooth.

It’s advisable to use a 25cm diameter non-stick ring cake tin, but as I don’t have one I used a 23cm tin which meant the cake rose into a sort of donut shape that the kids thought was fab. We got about 15 slices out of it and in total it lasted less than 24hrs from finished article to empty cake tin.

Ingredients:

For the Streusel: 

• 50g Soft light brown sugar
• 80g plain flower
• 1.5tsp ground cinnamon
• 45g unsalted butter (cubed and cold) + a bit for greasing the tin
• 80g walnuts (I used walnuts and pecan nuts)

For the sponge:

• 170g unsalted butter  (softened)
• 250g castor sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1.5tsp vanilla extract
• 280g soured cream
• 420g plain flour
• 2tsp baking powder
• 0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 0.5tsp salt
• 100ml maple syrup (to drizzle)

For the glaze:

• 150g icing sugar (sifted)
• 4tbsp maple syrup (ish)

To Bake:

Preheat oven to 170°C, Gas mark 3. Grease the cake tin with butter and dust with flour. To make the Streusel place the brown sugar, flour & cinnamon in a bowl. Add the cubed, cold butter and rub the mixture together using your fingertips until it forms a crumble (if you suffer from warm hands (bakers curse) then you can try pulsing the ingredients in a food processor to form the crumble. Add the chopped walnuts and stir through then set aside.

Now for the cake mix - In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment or using a hand held electric whisk, cream together the butter and sugar for the sponge until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract. Add the soured cream and mix well.

In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix thoroughly at a medium speed until smooth and even. Sprinkle half the Streusel mix in the bottom of the prepared cake tin and top with half the sponge mixture. Sprinkle the remaining Streusel mix on the sponge batter then top with the remaining sponge  batter.

Bake the cake for 50-60 minutes until golden on top and when tested with a skewer it comes out clean of batter. While the cake is still warm, drizzle over the maple syrup (this will eventually be the bottom of the cake. Allow the cake to fully cool in the tin.

While the cake is cooling make the glaze. In a bowl (allow a bit of room as icing sugar is dusty stuff) Mix together the icing sugar and maple syrup with 2 tablespoons of water to form a smooth runny glaze. You are looking to achieve a consistency that will ooze off the spoon but thick enough to almost set on the cake).

Turn the cooled cake out onto a wire rack so it is Streusel side up. Sit the rack over a baking tray and coat the top in the maple glaze. It will run down the sides of the cake and any extra will be caught in the baking tray to be reused for a second layer (or given to the kids for a bit of finger licking fun). Sprinkle over some chopped walnuts (and pecan nuts for my cake). Once the glaze has started to set transfer the cake to a plate or cake card.