Apple Crumble Cake

My colleagues and I had been at the receiving end of another colleague's mother's generosity for the past few weeks. SK's mom had been bringing her tea time goodies to office 2 to 3 times a week. Her repertoire of goodies is amazingly wide, from asian snacks, japanese food, western pastries...and my favourite is her peach crumble. Unlike the usual crumble, her peach crumble is very light. I searched through my recipe books for a recipe that I thought could replicate her peach crumble and found a crumble cake recipe in 'Cafe Cakes' by Australian Women's Weekly. So I adapted the recipe and baked it as my contribution to a Christmas potluck party.

The original recipe called for pears but since I did not have any at home, I replaced the pears with apples. The apples were first simmered in a cinnamon sugar syrup to sweeten and infuse the apples with the aromatic cinnamon scent before adding the apples to the crumble cake mixture. In a Christmasy mood, I further spiced up the crumble cake with a dash of nutmeg and more ground cinnamon. While the apple crumble cake is very yummy, it is a much heavier cake than SK's mom's version, so I guess, I still need to ask if she could share her recipe with me :)

Apple Crumble Cake
(Adapted from Cafe Cakes by Australian Women's Weekly)

Cinnamon Syrup
500 ml water
190 gm castor sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
3 small green apples (about 360g)

Combine water, sugar and cinnamon in a large frying pan; stir over heat without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Add apples and let them simmer uncovered until just tender (about 5-10 mins). Drain apples

Cake Mixture
100gm castor sugar
50gm brown sugar
125 gm unsalted butter
pinch of salt
2 eggs
225 gm self raising flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Beat butter with both sugar and salt until light and fluffly. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just combine. Add vanilla essence. Add flour, ground cinnomon, ground nutmeg; beat at low speed until just combined. Divide and spread mixture into ramekins. Top cake mixture with half apples and half crumble topping. Repeat with remaining apples and crumble topping. Bake at 160 degrees for 1 hour. Cool cake in tin

Crumble Topping
75 gm plain flour
75 gm sugar
65 gm unsalted butter
pinch of salt
75 gm shredded coconut.