Easy Apple Crumbs Cake

When i said easy, it means real EASY. Well, not that easy that a 5 years old can do this by them self. But an amateur baker like me surely can!

Easy Apple Crumb Cake
from The Amateur Gourmet

For the cake:
Unsalted butter, for the baking dish
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 large egg
1/2 cup whole milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 ripe pears or apples, if you use apples, you should probably peel, cored and chopped them.

For the streusel topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut up
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish.

To make the cake, combine the flour with the baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and then mix in the milk and melted butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the pears, and mix well. Pour this into the buttered baking dish.

To make the streusel, mix the sugar, flour, cold butter, and cinnamon in a bowl by pinching them together with your fingers until well combined. Sprinkle over the top of the batter.

Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes, until it is golden and dry on top. Cool in the pan, and then cut into squares.

Lesson in this post : i use whatever apple i had in the fridge, which is such a terrible idea. The apple inside the cake lost much of its flavor. fyi, i use Fuji, the one that should be for eating out of hand. For baking, you can use Rome, Jonagold, Granny Smith, or visit this link for more details :

Apple varieties and their best uses
http://www.usapple.org/consumers/appleguide/variety.cfm

Apple varieties with pictures
http://www.usapple.org/consumers/appleguide/guide.cfm#braeburn

More about apple
http://www.fruitandveggieguru.com/apples.html?pccid=1&tabid=70&kw=apples