Sour Cream Apple Crumble Cake w/ Thyme & Orange Mascarpone Icing
G’day Mate! I hope you can read this properly, I am writing to you from the other side of the world. ? I am back, live from Melbourne. I just realised that not everyone reading this blog is from England so I might be on the same side of the world as you. Ah well. Just getting off on right hilarious foot, aren’t I. So yes, I am currently living, working and baking in Australia. I thought it was about time I shared some of my adventures and new recipes with you.
I’ve managed to get myself a great job over here which involves baking, a bit of customer service and working in the service kitchen. In terms of baking, I’m getting loads of experience in baking new things. Over the past few weeks I’ve perfected a brioche doughnut recipe which I’m pretty pleased with. It took a good few attempts to get a dough that rose well and could be kept in the fridge a few days before frying. I’ve also been baking more traditional Kiwi/ Australian things such as Lamingtons and Anzac biscuits. It’s been quite inspiring coming to a new place and seeing how things are done here. I’m excited to start experimenting more with the baking I do at home and share some recipes I try with you ?
I have now been away from home for nearly 5 months and have many travel tales to tell. I therefore decided I will be doing a mixture of travel and recipe posts for the remainder of my time away. I hope you’re as excited as I am for this new journey we will be taking together. Don’t worry, I’ve written an extensive travel journal so no details will be left forgotten. For reals though, during the first 8 weeks of my trip, before I settled into working in Melbourne, I kept note of every meal I ate and other such interesting bits of information ? Don’t forget to follow me on instagram.com/kb.eats to keep up to date with what I’m eating/baking/doing. 
Recipe
What is the inspiration behind this cake then? Well firstly, I had sour cream and mascarpone in the fridge that needed using up and secondly, it is very much autumn/winter here so apples are in season. Nothing pleases me more than chunks of fruit and a bit of a crunch in a cake. The mascarpone icing is not essential as the cake itself is moist, but it adds some jazzy flavours to the mix. I use green apples for the chunks for a bit of tartness but if you prefer red apples it’s absolutely fine to just use red.
Serves: 8-10
Prep Time: 30 mins
Cooking Time: 50-60mins
Difficulty: 2/5
Equipment
Mixing Bowls
8″ Round Tin (greased and lined)
Serrated knife (if icing cake)
Piping bag (optional, if piping icing)
Ingredients
Crumble
65g plain flour
50g granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
55g butter (melted)
50g almonds (roughly chopped)
Cake
150gbutter (softened)
100g soft brown sugar
3 eggs
300g sour cream
190g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 green apples (0.5cm cubes)
1 red apple (grated)
Icing
115g butter
4 sprigs thyme
125g mascarpone
85g icing sugar
zest of 1 orange
½ tbsp orange juice
Method
- Preheat oven to 170c/150c fan/gas 3.5. Grease and line cake tin.
- CRUMBLE: In a small mixing bowl, mix together flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon.
- Pour over melted butter and mix until you have a lumpy dough mix.
- Stir through almonds. Set aside.
- CAKE: Cream together butter and sugar in large mixing bowl.
- Add eggs one at a time – beating between each addition.
- Add sour cream and mix well.
- In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients.
- Fold the dry ingredients into the sour cream mix, followed by the grated and cubed apple.
- Pour mix into cake tin and top with crumble.
- Bake for 50-60 mins or until skewer comes out clean.
- Leave in tin for 5 mins before removing and leaving to cool completely on wire rack.
- ICING: Put butter and thyme in a small saucepan and melt over medium heat.
- Once butter has melted, reduce to low heat and allow thyme to steep in butter for 15 mins.
- Pour butter into bowl, remove thyme, cover and place in freezer for 10mins or until butter has set but is not frozen – you want it to be spreadable consistency so not too runny or too well set.
- Put butter in mixing bowl and beat until smooth.
- Add mascarpone and mix well.
- Add the icing sugar in small amounts, beating well between each addition.
- Finally add orange zest and orange juice and beat until you have a light, spreadable mix – add more orange juice if you feel your mix is too thick but be careful to not over do it!
- Once the cake has completely cooled, cut it in half using a serrated knife.
- Spread or pipe the icing on the bottom half of the cake and then add the top half.
I’ve had Childish Gambino’s album Awaken My Love on on repeat for the last few months. Here’s my favourite track from it:
If I were at home I would definitely make this one for my Dad for Father’s Day so I’ll dedicate this cake to all you Papa’s out there 🙂 Next week have your bags ready for a trip to South Australia ?
KB x