This is a healthier take on a cake, offering a soft cake-like base with tart, fresh berries in the middle and a seeded crumble on top. With nuts, oats, banana, blackcurrants, raspberries, honey, spices and seeds all in the mix it’s more nutrient rich than your average sweet treat, making it delicious as an anytime pick-me-up. It works well for breakfast with a smoothie of choice for some fruity goodness or served cake style with a large pot of tea / coffee at any time of the day. Kids love making this one and it’s a great way to use fresh seasonal berries. To make a vegan version just swap out the butter for a plant-based alternative such as flora.
Ingredients:
(makes 12 generous slices)
Base:
100 g unsalted butter, softened
50g light muscovado sugar
50g ground almonds
200g gluten free oats
50g toasted hazelnut nibs
1 tbsp honey
1 rip, medium banana
To make:
Grease and line a baking tin approx 8” x 10” and 2” deep before beginning
Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees
1. Blitz all ingredients together in a food processor (or, if mixing by hand, cream butter, sugar and honey together first then mash the banana and add along with all the other ingredients) until it forms a dough like consistency
2. Press base mix into the lined baking tray so it covers the bottom evenly
Fruit filling:
250g blackcurrants
250g raspberries
2 tbsps light muscovado sugar
To make:
1. Stir the fruit and sugar together until the berries are evenly coated
2. Add the berries onto the base layer, spreading them evenly and mashing lightly with a fork
Crumble topping:
100g unsalted butter, softened
75g demerara sugar
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp seasalt
100g gluten free oats
25g pumpkin seeds
25g sesame seeds
25g sunflowers seeds
To make:
1. Blitz the sugar, butter, oats, spice and salt together in a food processor until it starts to form crumble like nuggets (or if mixing by hand, cream the butter and sugar together first before rubbing the oats, spice and salt in with your fingertips to bring together the crumble consistency)
2. Stir in the seeds until well combined
3. Break the crumble mix up evenly over the fruit layer
Once all three layers have been added to the tin, bake at 175 degrees for 50-60 minutes until the crumble topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling through.
Once cooked, leave in the tin to cool then remove and cut into 12 even slices.
