When Alice Zaslavsky (aka @aliceinframes) recently posted a recipe on Instagram, she claimed it was the “world’s easiest apple crumble cake”. I was intrigued and gave it a whirl.

There’s no mixing, whisking, beating. Instead it’s a basic layering of dry ingredients, grated butter and fruit. The trick is to freeze the butter solid beforehand, for easy grating. When adding the dry ingredient layer, give the cake tin a gentle jiggle side-to-side to spread out. The baked result has a nutty, crunchy, crumbly top with a moist fruit laden centre.

Alice used four grated apples. Here, I’ve used Tuerong Farm’s semolina and one bunch of rhubarb tossed with orange zest and juice, but lemon works too. I’ve also experimented with a mix of apples and rhubarb, another test was with diced pear, ground ginger and mixed spice and almonds instead of walnuts. It’s a flexible recipe, which is likely to become on regular rotation for many of you.

serves 8-10 

1 cup (150g) plain flour

2 teaspooons baking powder

1 cup (180g) semolina

1 cup (220g) raw castor sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon mixed spice

1 bunch rhubarb, finely sliced

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 orange or lemon, finely grated zest and juiced

125g unsalted butter, frozen

1 cup (100g) walnuts or almonds, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease a 20-22cm spring form cake tin and line the base with baking paper.

Place the flour, baking powder, semolina, sugar and spices in a bowl. Stir to combine. In another bowl place the rhubarb, vanilla, orange zest and juice and toss to combine. 

Using a box grater, coarsely grate a third of the frozen butter over the base of the prepared cake tin, spreading out evenly. Sprinkle 1 cup of the dry mixture evenly over the butter. Spread half of the rhubarb mixture over the top. Sprinkle over another cup of dry mixture over the fruit, then grate over a third of the butter. Next spread over the remaining fruit, then the nuts, then the remaining dry mixture. Give the tin a slight jiggle side-to-side, to even out the layer. Finally grate the remaining butter evenly over the top. 

Bake in oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden brown on top and skewer comes out clean. To serve warm, cool the cake in tin for 20 minutes before removing, or cool completely in the tin.

Cut into wedges and serve with a dollop of cream.

 Fiona Hammond © July 2020