Nothing speaks winter more than a crumble cake made of stewed apple, cinnamon and roasted pecans. Fortunately, @nimbinvalleypecanandrice have just returned to the market with bundles of newly harvested pecans. So it would be rude not to make something delicious with these nuts fresh straight from the paddock.
We have to confess to stealing this recipe from one of our market regulars, the lovely Belinda Jeffery, who we believe stole this from her Mum, although she added her own twist to it. https://belindajeffery.com.au.
Here’s the recipe below or follow the link to Belinda’s website to get all the nitty-gritty https://belindajeffery.com.au/recipe/apple-pecan-and-cinnamon-crumble-cake/.

  • SERVES 10.

  • CINNAMON AND PECAN CRUMBLE:

  • 130g lightly roasted pecans
  • 60g soft brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 40g cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks

  • CAKE:

  • 1 cup (150g) self-raising flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 200g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs, at room temperature
  • 150g unsalted butter, cut into chunks, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup (125ml) milk, at room temperature
  • 500g (about 4 smallish) royal gala or pink lady apples, peeled, halved and cored, then cut into 4mm thick slices
  • Icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat your oven to 180C. Butter a 25cm springform tin, and line the base with buttered baking paper, dust the tin with flour, then set it aside.

For the cinnamon and pecan crumble, put all the ingredients into a food processor fitted with the steel blade, and pulse until the pecans are coarsely chopped and mixture is crumbly (be careful not to let it go too far or it will turn into a paste). Tip it into a bowl and pop it in the fridge.

Add the flour, baking powder and salt to the food processor, and whiz them together for 10 seconds or so, then tip them into a bowl too. Now, put the sugar and eggs into the processor bowl and whiz them together for 1 minute. Add the butter and process for another minute, stopping and scraping down the sides once or twice, until the mixture is creamy. Stir the vanilla into the milk then add half this mixture and half the flour mixture to the processor and whiz briefly, scrape down the sides again. Add the remaining milk and flour mixtures to the processor and whiz just until the batter is smooth – don’t worry if it looks a bit curdled at this stage, it will be fine.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared cake tin. Arrange the apples slices in a layer covering the batter, partially pushing the slices into the batter. Sprinkle the crumble in a thick layer all over the apple, then gently shake the tin to level the crumble.

Pop the tin in the oven and bake the cake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until the top is dark golden and a fine skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Remove the cake to a wire rack and leave it to cool in the tin for about 6 minutes (it will sink a bit) then gently invert it onto the rack (If you sit a sheet of baking paper on top of the cake before you do this, it will stop the crumble flying off). Remove the lining paper then sit another rack on top, and invert the cake again so it’s crumble-side up. Serve warm or room temperature. Just before serving, dust the top with icing sugar.