Apples, raisins, nuts, cinnamon – if you could put autumn in a cake, it would come out of the oven as this one.

Who doesn’t love a nice apple cake, pie or crumble? This is all three and it is seriously delicious. My friend Sandra gave me some apples from her sister’s garden and I immediately knew what kind of cake I wanted to make. I wanted a cake with a pie filling and a crumble top. I filled it with vanilla pudding (custard), rum soaked raisins and apple pieces I had stewed with brown sugar and topped it with a nutty and buttery crumble, which is, if you excuse the pun, the icing on the cake (Only it is No icing).

Ingredients

For the base:

• 300g white flour
• 100g unsalted butter
• 100g white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 2 eggs

For the filling:

• about 8-10 medium sized apples (preferably not too sweet)
• 50g unsalted butter
• 50g brown sugar
• 50g raisins
• 1 shot glass rum
• 1 packet vanilla pudding (plus 450ml milk, 2 tablespoons of sugar) or a 500ml pack of readymade custard (plus 2 teaspoons of corn flour & 3 tablespoons of milk)

For the crumble:

• 100g flour
• 50g ground almonds or hazelnuts
• 100g butter
• 100g white sugar

Preheat your oven to 180C, 160C if it is a fan oven.

Soak the raisins in the rum for at least 2 hours until they are nice and plump.

Peel the apples, core them and cut into 8 slices and halve those, so you have 16 pieces from each apple.

Work all the ingredients for the base into a smooth dough and leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Do the same with the ingredients for the crumble.

While the dough is resting, melt the butter in a pot and add the apple pieces, rum-soaked raisins with the brown sugar and a little bit of water and the rum. Bring the apples to the boil and then turn the heat down and let them simmer on a low heat for 10-15 minutes. You don’t want the pieces to fall apart, just to soften. When they are ready, put them in a sieve so they can dry out a bit.

Prepare the vanilla pudding as instructed on the package, but with just 450ml of milk, so the consistency is a bit firmer. If you use readymade custard, bring to the boil whilst constantly stirring, take of the heat and stir in the corn flour mixed with milk. Return to the heat briefly until it bubbles and then let it cool down.

Line a 26cm round cake tin and fill with the base dough. Make sure the whole bottom is covered evenly and the sides about halfway up.

Pour in the vanilla pudding/custard and spread evenly.

Add the apple filling.

Crumble the nutty dough on top.

Bake for about 1 ¼ hours, the last 15 minutes on 200C/180C to make the crumbles extra golden and crunchy.

Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool down.

It is very tempting to eat it straightaway – and you can, if you are greedy and don’t mind the cake to be a bit messy – but the vanilla pudding/custard needs to set, so it is easier to cut the cake. I find the cake tastes even better the next day or even two days later, when all the flavours have truly blended

You could serve this with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or even more custard, but I just served it on its own and I didn’t get any complaints.