Hello, everybody. Enjoying summer?
That's too bad, because I can already smell Fall in the air. I'm completely torn between anticipation of pumpkin pies and spiced hot chocolate and my current immersion in crumbles, popsicles, cakes, and smoothies. This is really the life, isn't it?
This is where I work.
These are my friends and family, at one of our favorite places in the world: Polly's Cove.
This is beet gnocchi.
It has been a good summer.
I'll welcome the seasons as they come. I still haven't found a time of year I don't like. In celebration of that and the fact that I have access to organic strawberries, here's this cake:
Apple Strawberry Buckle. I love that name, buckle. It has bounce and sturdiness at the same time, kinda like this cake. It's pretty dense, but compressible, and individual mouthfuls just fall apart around the fruit. I used this recipe from Seven Spoons, a food blog new to me. It's quite excellent.
So, apples: I used Ida Reds from Hennigar's Farm Market. Not sure what variety of strawberry I was using, but they were from one of my favourite vendors: Longspell Point Farm.
It starts very simply.
Fruit:
Fruit:
Spices and a little flour:
And butter. Always butter.
Smash these up together to make a crumble for the topping:
Reserve a half-cup of this and move onto the actual cake body.
For that, we need our pot! Which, incidentally, you have to line with parchment paper, and then grease and flour the lining. Do NOT skip this bit, it'll be worth it. If you need a lesson on why you should do this, visit, this post of mine a few months ago.
Once this is done, we're back to beating together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
I find it so satisfying to do this by hand, especially because it's just a bit of butter, and not a huge whack of it. After this, we add flour and then milk. This is one of the best parts, because this is when the ingredients actually start becoming a batter.
One gorgeous cup of Foxhill Cheesehouse milk.
One...
Two...
Three...
Beat!
MMMMMMMMMMMM.
The batter is pretty thick. Good for scooping up with your index finger to taste.
At this point, it's time to mix in chopped strawberries and apples. You could really put any kind of fruit in here, and it'd be okay.
Put the reserved crumble over the top, pop it in the oven, and yank the whole parchment-lined cake out of the Dutch Oven when it's time to cool it down.
En. Joy.
