Strawberry and pecan streusel cake
Celebrate spring’s new-season strawberries and the mellow sweetness of pecans in this wonderful slice-like streusel cake. It’s especially good with any berries, but it’s also worth trying with rhubarb or stone fruit once they come into season.
Ingrediënten
- ½ cup 125 g unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup 110 g caster (superfine) sugar
- Grated zest of 1 orange
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 eggs at room temperature
- ½ cup 75 g plain (all-purpose) flour
- ½ cup 50 g almond meal
- 1 tsp baking powder
- A pinch of sea salt
- ¼ cup 70 g plain yoghurt or buttermilk
- 2 cups 300 g strawberries, hulled and quartered
STREUSEL TOPPING
- 75 g 2½ oz unsalted butter
- ¼ cup 55 g white (granulated) sugar
- ¼ cup 35 g plain (all-purpose) flour
- ¼ cup 60 ml thick (double) cream
- 75 g 2½ oz roughly chopped pecans
- Icing confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Instructies
- Preheat the oven to 170°C (340°F).
- Grease and line a 22 cm (8½ inch) square cake tin with baking paper.
- Beat the butter, sugar, orange zest and vanilla in an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and stopping every now and then to scrape down the side of the bowl.
- Add the flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt and yoghurt or buttermilk and beat for 1 minute or until well combined.
- Transfer the batter to the cake tin and smooth the top.
- Scatter the strawberries over the top and push them into the batter a little.
- Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes or until risen, pale golden and almost cooked.
- About halfway through this initial cooking time, prepare the topping.
- Combine the butter, sugar, flour and cream in a saucepan.
- Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture starts to bubble and everything is melted into a gorgeous golden caramel.
- Take the cake out of the oven – it should be just pale golden on top and cooked enough to ‘hold up’ the caramel and nuts.
- Sprinkle the chopped pecans over the cake, then pour the caramel over the top.
- Gently spread the topping with a spatula so it covers as much of the top of the cake as possible.
- (Don’t worry if it doesn’t cover the cake entirely – it will spread further as the caramel cooks. )
- Return the cake to the oven and bake for a final 25 minutes or until the caramel is golden and the cake is cooked through.
- Set aside to cool for 5 minutes, then lightly dust with icing sugar and serve warm with cream, yoghurt or ice cream.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
