Roasted Strawberry Crumble Loaf
Roasting the strawberries for this cake lends them an unrivalled depth of flavour. The soft swirls in the light sponge contrast with the crumble crunch on top.
It's a versatile cake: take it on a picnic, spread it with butter or serve it with a dollop of cream for afternoon tea, or slightly warmed through with vanilla ice cream for dessert.
For another seasonal strawberry recipe, see my crumble here.
Makes 1 1lb loaf.
Ingredients
For the cake
Equipment
1. Roast the strawberries with a generous knob of butter, dispersed through the strawberries, at 160°C (fan) for 25 minutes. Strain, discard the juice, and then use a hand blender to whizz to a pulp. Leave to one side to cool. Keep the oven on.
Roasting the strawberries for this cake lends them an unrivalled depth of flavour. The soft swirls in the light sponge contrast with the crumble crunch on top.
It's a versatile cake: take it on a picnic, spread it with butter or serve it with a dollop of cream for afternoon tea, or slightly warmed through with vanilla ice cream for dessert.
For another seasonal strawberry recipe, see my crumble here.
Makes 1 1lb loaf.
Ingredients
For the cake
- 300g strawberries, green tops removed
- Knob of butter
- 225g butter/baking spread
- 225g caster sugar
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 225g self-raising flour, and 1 tablespoon extra
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 50g plain flour
- 35g butter
- 25g oats
- 25g demerara sugar
- 70g chopped strawberries
Equipment
- Roasting tin
- 1lb loaf tin, fully lined
1. Roast the strawberries with a generous knob of butter, dispersed through the strawberries, at 160°C (fan) for 25 minutes. Strain, discard the juice, and then use a hand blender to whizz to a pulp. Leave to one side to cool. Keep the oven on.
2. Use an electric whisk to mix the butter, sugar and lemon zest together until light and creamy.
3. Add the beaten eggs a tiny bit at a time, between spoonfuls of flour, so the mixture doesn't curdle. Add one spoonful of recently boiled hot water and mix through.
4. Mix half of the cake batter with the strawberry puree, and then add a tablespoon of self-raising flour to this mixture. Mix thoroughly.
5. Dollop spoonfuls of the strawberry batter with the plain batter, and then use a skewer or a knife blade to marble the colours together. Bake for 45 minutes at 160°C (fan). Meanwhile, make the crumble topping (see next step).
6. Combine the flour, butter, oats and sugar together. Chop the strawberries into small pieces and use kitchen roll to soak up any juices. Mix the strawberries through the crumble. After the loaf has been baking for 45 minutes, pile the crumble on top of the loaf and return to the oven for 25 minutes at 180°C (fan) until the crumble is golden brown.
7. Leave the loaf to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes, and then remove it from the tin and transfer to a cooling tray. Slice when fully cool. Serve on its own, cool or slightly warmed through, with cream or ice cream.