Walnut Crumble Cake

Playing time with flour, sugar, eggs and butter....

Ingredients:

for the crumbles:

• 100g digestive biscuits, crushed
• 50g walnut, lightly toasted and chopped coarsely
• 50g light brown sugar
• 5g instant coffee
• 2.5g cinnamon powder
• 50g cold butter

for the cake layer:

• 150g soft butter
• 100g castor sugar
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• a pinch of salt
• 200g cake flour **
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 150g plain yoghurt

** for cake flour: 2 cups of plain flour but take away 2 tbsp. Add in 2 tbsp cornflour. Sift both the flour 5x.

Method:

Mix crushed digestive biscuits, light brown sugar, chopped walnut, cinnamon powder, instant coffeeon a mixing bowl. With finger tips, rub in the cold butter until the mixture becomes crumbly. Set aside.

Sift cake flour and baking powder, set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until light & fluffy. Mix in vanilla essence and salt and mix well.

Add in eggs gradually, mix well each time the eggs is added.

With spatula, stir in the cake flour mixture. Stir until the flour mixture is fully incorporated into the batter. The batter at this stage will be quiet thick and firm.

Add in yoghurt in a few separate additions, stir well each time the yoghurt is added. The batter will become smooth and spreadable.

Line a bottom of a 20cm springform pan with 1/3 of the crumble. Spread evenly and press firmly with the back of a spoon.

Add in 1/2 of the cake batter, spread evenly with the spatula. Sprinkle the top of the cake batter evenly with 1/3 of the crumbles. Add  in the remaining cake batter. Spread evenly. Sprinkle with the rest of the remaining crumbles.

Bake the cake in preheated oven at 170C (fan oven) for 30-40 minutes or until the skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Remove cake from oven, let cool slightly and unmould. Allow to cool completely before serving.