Cake and Crumpet

First the cake.

DD3’s boyfriend, who also lives with us, cooked chicken fajitas tonight so as I didn’t have to make dinner I treated us to dessert. We picked about 15 lbs of blackberries this year and have bags and bags of them in the freezer so I made a family favourite – Apple and Blackberry Crumble Loaf Cake. I actually made 2  (just double up the ingredients) to justify putting the oven on and I will freeze one. That's the plan anyway, but knowing my lot it might not last long enough to get frozen. 

Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients

250g/9 oz Self Raising Flour (I use half wholemeal)

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

175g/6 oz Butter

175g/6oz Soft Light Brown Sugar (I use half Caster Sugar)

1 small eating Apple (peeled and finely chopped - use that last wrinkly apple in the bowl)
2 large eggs
Half a teaspoon of Cinnamon

2 tablespoons Demerara Sugar

225g/8 oz Blackberries (I use mine straight from the freezer as they keep their shape better) 

Method

Grease and line a 9 x 20 x 13 cm loaf tin. Mix together the flour(s), baking powder and cinnamon. Rub the butter into the flour etc. until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the soft brown sugar.  Reserve 5 tablespoons of this mixture in a seperate bowl for the crumble topping and add the demerara sugar to it. Beat the eggs and add to the main mixture along with the diced apple. Stir together until just mixed (do not overmix), then gently stir in 3/4 of the blackberries. Spoon this mixture into the prepared tin, level it out and then scatter on the remaining berries and finally sprinkle over the reserved topping mix. Bake for approx 1 hour 15 mins at Gas mark 4, 180 C/ 350 F. Test with a skewer and if its still gooey in the middle cook a little longer. If it's getting too brown on the top cover with foil or baking parchment. When cooked, cool in the tin for 30 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Or can be eaten still warm. Yummy with custard, ice cream or cream.

Just out of the oven

 Yummy with custard

And now for the crumpet...

That would be my gorgeous hubby modelling the hat I’ve been knitting to keep him warm on his journey to and from work during the winter.

Knitted in navy blue, double knit, acrylic yarn on straight needles in K2, P2 rib it took about 2 days to knit in short bursts while watching TV. 

Here’s the hat on the needles.

The finished article.

And as worn by my very own male super model.

And lastly, a big thank you to Angela, my very first reviewer for taking the time to leave me a comment. Its lovely to know someone is reading my humble offerings.