Cinnamon swirl cake

It was dark and gloomy Monday morning. It was proved that this is the most depressing day in the year. Apparently most of the New Year’s resolution was broken, payday wasn’t close and it was still winter. I baked a cake for my friend, but as I walk to work it couldn’t be anything fancy with buttercream and layers, the fanciest I could do was cinnamon swirls and hazelnut crumble. It sounds good enough for me.

My swirls are not so pretty as the original ones but Eevan said it tastes like America. I hope it was complement. I would say it tastes like Northern Europe , like Sweden, Denmark or Norway. But that are all details. It’s just a perfect cake for a cup of tea.

Recipe from Kuchnia nad Atlantykiem
For 22×32-cm pan

Crumble

• 100 g hazelnuts or walnuts
• 120 g plain flour
• 100 g dark brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 85 g butter, cold and cubed

Swirls

• 100 g caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Cake

• 500 g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 225 g butter
• 350 g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 350 ml sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Crumble

Toast hazelnuts or walnuts in a dry pan until they become fragrant and golden. Leave it to cool.

Rub them with a dry paper towel and try to remove some skins.

Place flour, sugar and salt in a food processor. Add nuts and pulse a few times until they will be in bits.

Add butter and pulse until you get a crumble.

Place in a fridge until needed.

Swirls

In a small bowl mix all ingredients together. Set aside.

Cake

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan.

Grease a tin and dust it with rice flour or semolina.

In a bowl sift together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

In another bowl beat the butter with sugar.

Add one egg at a time and mix until fully incorporate before adding the next egg.

Add a part of sour cream and then a part of flour, mixing all the time. Repeat until you run out of ingredients.

Mix in vanilla extract.

Pour 2/3 of batter into the prepared tin.

Sprinkle it with a half of swirl mixture.

Pour the remaining cake batter.

Sprinkle it with the remaining swirl mixture.

Using a skewer make swirls.

Sprinkle with the crumble mixture.

Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in it comes out clean.

Advertisement