I'll Bring Cake

Peach Melba Inspired Crumb Cake (oh and its Vegan)

Happy Friday!

When I am baking something new, I work in one of two ways. I either develop a recipe because its an idea I have for work, something I think you wonderful people will like, something I have been given a brief for, or something for a book project. Otherwise, I work on something new because I am baking for family and friends and want to make something that they specifically would like, the use of the recipe for work comes second, if at all. Most of the recipes I share are done for that initial reason, but sometimes something I make for friends also ends up being something I want to share here. Today is one of those recipes.

Last weekend we were visiting our friends and their daughter, our goddaughter, who has recently learned to ask for cake in baby sign, a cuter thing you’ve never seen. Of course, this meant I had to bring along some cake. The couple are vegan, obviously not a problem but also not my particular wheelhouse. I don’t do a huge amount of plant based baking but thankfully over the years I have built up a few ways of veganising recipes, so I can always pull something out of the bag should a vegan bake be needed. This recipe was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to create a vegan cake that was as accessible as possible, no egg replacers and nothing you had to order online, simple ingredients all available from the supermarket. I wanted to make a kind of crumb cake, a simple snack cake perfect for an afternoon catch up, something not too sweet and something with seasonal fruit as the star. I settled on a peach melba inspired crumb cake, a rich and dense cake layer, topped with peach and raspberry, finished with a generous crumble layer on top, delicious. The texture of the cake was a happy accident, not really what I intended but I actually loved the end result; the texture reminded me of American pound cakes, dense and velvety. The crumble topping was great, obviously. When is a cake with a crumble topping not great? The only issue I had was the fruit, the peaches I had on hand ended up being pretty bland and too firm but I was too far down the process to back out, thankfully the raspberries had enough flavour to save the cake. It is also worth noting that because the cake batter is thick and the cake dense, the fruit doesn’t sink; if you want the fruit to be studded through the finished cake, instead of in a single layer hidden below the crumble, folding into the cake will work well, there is no worry about the fruit sinking to the bottom of the cake with this recipe.

Whilst the cake is fabulous on its own, if you want to make it into more of a dessert it would pair brilliantly with a cold vanilla custard. Hot custard would be fine too I guess but there is something special about cake and cold custard, same pleasure I get from leftover apple crumble and a chilled custard, pure comfort.