blackberry walnut crumble cake

blackberry walnut crumble cake

6 Jul 2026

I bought a punnet of blackberries and intended to make Julia Busuttil Nishimura's Blackberry Yoghurt Loaf Cake. Whilst thumbing through my copy of 'Love is a Pink Cake' by Claire Ptak I spied her recipe for a Blackberry and Rose Walnut Crumble Cake. 

I was torn and couldn't decide which of the cakes to make so I combined the 2 recipes to make this blackberry walnut crumble cake. The batter is from Julia's recipe whilst the crumble comes from Claire's recipe. Unfortunately, Claire's recipe isn't available online and I did make some changes to the crumble recipe.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a small loaf cake. The batter was a bit too much for my tiny little tin, so next time I'd use one of the other larger loaf tins in my collection. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Blackberry walnut crumble cake
For the crumble
50g fine semolina
¼ tsp sea salt
35g chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp ground cinnamon
35g caster sugar
50g toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped

Cake
135g room temperature unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
2 eggs
100g full-fat plain yoghurt
115g self-raising flour
50g almond meal
½ tsp baking powder
pinch seasalt flakes
125g blackberries, fresh or frozen

Crumble mixture
Put all the ingredients except the walnuts into a small food processor and pulse to combine. Add the walnuts and pulse a few times to incorporate. Chill until ready to use.

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Grease and line a small loaf tin with baking paper. Place the butter, sugar, and vanilla in the large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream together on high speed for about 5 minutes, or until pale and fluffy, scraping down the side of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. 

Place the flour, almond meal and salt in a small bowl and mix to combine, then reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the yoghurt and mix to combine then add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Do a final mix with a spatula.

Spoon half the mixture into the prepared tin and top with the blackberries and half the crumble topping. Carefully spoon over the remaining batter then top with the remaining crumble mixture. Transfer the tin to the oven and bake on the centre rack of the preheated 180°C, conventional oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean and the top springs back when gently pressed.

Cool the cake in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. The cake is best eaten on the day it is made, but will keep in an airtight container for 2-3 days.

This was a delicious morsel I have to say and adaptable to any in season fruit. As its such a versatile recipe I can see other versions popping up on the blog in the future.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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roasted rhubarb almond and polenta muffins

roasted rhubarb almond and polenta muffins

29 Jun 2026

Last month I shared a recipe for roasted peach almond and polenta muffins. They were delicious and I planned to make a rhubarb version as soon as it was rhubarb season. Well it's rhubarb season in Sydney so I bought a bunch of rhubarb and set to work adapting the recipe.

First things first, oven roast the rhubarb. Please don't skip this step because raw rhubarb turns into tough inedible nubbins when baked for 30-40 minutes. If you have any leftovers they're delicious topped with yoghurt. 

I made a few changes to the batter - a little more sugar, a bit more egg and I added some chopped uncooked rhubarb because too much rhubarb is never enough. I ran out of muffin liners and discovered the new liners I bought were much smaller. Instead of 6 muffins I ended up with 9 muffins.

Here's the recipe for you adapted from a Claire Ptak recipe which will make 9 muffins. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Roasted rhubarb almond and polenta muffins - makes 9 muffins
Oven roasted rhubarb

400g trimmed rhubarb
2½ tbs sugar 
1 tbs grated orange rind
½ cinnamon stick
juice ½ orange

Batter ingredients 
125g caster sugar plus raw sugar for sprinkling
125g room temperature unsalted butter
The grated rind of 1 orange (minus the 1 tbs used in the rhubarb)
2 eggs 
165g almond meal 
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt 
112g polenta flour
60g diced rhubarb
icing sugar to serve 

Oven roasted rhubarb
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional, or 170°C, fan forced. Trim the fruit to fit into a roasting pan and sprinkle with the sugar. Grate the orange before juicing. Sprinkle over 1 tbs of the rind and then reserve the rest to use in the batter. Add the cinnamon stick and the orange juice to the tin, then roast uncovered for 10 minutes. The rhubarb should still be quite firm as it needs to be trimmed to the size of your muffins. Remove the tray from the oven and cool completely before storing the roasted rhubarb in an airtight container the fridge. Reserve any juice.

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional or 170°C, fan forced. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with 9 paper liners. (I was aiming to make 6 muffins but my new paper liners are much smaller and I ended up with 9 muffins)

In a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and orange zest until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs slowly and mix well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the almond meal, baking powder, salt, and the polenta flour. Add this to the butter mixture and mix well then fold through the diced rhubarb. Scoop the batter into the lined muffin pan and top with 3 or 4 rhubarb slices then sprinkle generously with raw sugar.

Bake the muffins for 30-40 minutes on the centre rack of the preheated 190°C conventional, or 170°C fan forced oven or until an inserted skewer comes out clean and the tops of the muffins spring back to the touch. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the tin. 

If you like, you can simmer the reserved rhubarb cooking juices in a small pan to form a syrup. Just before serving, glaze the rhubarb pieces with the syrup, then dust the muffins with icing sugar.

These muffins will keep for up to 4 days in an airtight container and I think they actually taste better the day after baking.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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mandarin hazelnut syrup cake

mandarin hazelnut syrup cake

22 Jun 2026

It's citrus season here and my fruit bowl is loaded with oranges, mandarins and limes. It seemed a shame not to take advantage of this bounty so I looked online for some inspiration which is where I found this mandarin flavoured hazelnut cake.

I looked through the fridge, my pantry and the fruit bowl and I had everything I needed to make the cake. It's a simple melt and mix cake and I'm sure it could be made using olive oil instead of melted butter. I've made many similar cakes before so I changed the method a little to reflect how I usually make a melt and mix cake.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17-cm cake, adapted from a Matt Moran recipe. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Mandarin and hazelnut syrup cake 
Ingredients
250g mandarins, about 2 small mandarins
150g caster sugar
125g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
65g eggs
125g plain flour
60g hazelnut meal (I used a combination of hazelnut and almond meal)

1 tsp baking powder
large pinch seasalt flakes
90g thick natural yoghurt, plus extra to serve

Mandarin syrup
180g caster sugar
Peel of 1 mandarin
Scraped seeds of ½ vanilla bean
180mls water

35mls lemon juice

To serve
2 - 3 mandarins, peeled and thickly sliced into rounds, reserve the peel of 1 mandarin for the syrup

plain yoghurt

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C, conventional or 160°C, fan forced. Grease, flour and line the base of a 17cm cake tin with a round of baking paper.

Peel 1 mandarin, then remove and discard any fine fibres from the skins. Blitz the skin and sugar in a small food processor until fine and smooth, transfer to a bowl and set aside.

Blitz the flesh of the mandarins you’ve peeled in the food processor until pureed, discard any seeds (I had 150mls of mandarin puree). Add the butter to the sugar mix, followed by the egg mixture and whisk to combine. 

Whisk the flour, hazelnut meal, baking powder and a pinch of salt together in a bowl. Add to the mandarin mixture alternating with the mandarin puree then whisk in yoghurt and mix until smooth. Spoon into prepared cake tin and bake on the centre rack of the preheated 180°C conventional oven for 55 minutes – 1 hour until risen, golden brown and a skewer inserted withdraws clean. Cool in tin for 10 minutes then transfer the tin to a wire rack. Loosen the cake with an off set spatula and invert onto the cooling rack. Remove the baking paper from the base of the cake, then invert and return to the tin.

Meanwhile, to make the mandarin syrup, blitz the sugar with the mandarin peel until fine, then combine in a wide saucepan with vanilla and the water. Stir over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves, bring to the boil, reduce heat to medium, simmer for 5-6 minutes until lightly syrupy, skimming off any scum that comes to the surface. Remove from the heat, add lemon juice, stand to cool slightly. 

Peel the remaining mandarins, and take off any fibres, then thickly slice and combine in a container with half the syrup. Refrigerate to chill.

Pierce several holes in the cake then pour the rest of the warm syrup over the warm cake. Let the syrup soak in (this could take more than an hour) and cool to room temperature before serving.

Serve the cake with the mandarin slices, the syrup and extra yoghurt.

The cake was as delicious as you'd expect a nut cake doused with mandarin syrup topped with yoghurt would be. Could you make this using oranges? Absolutely.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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apple pie with an olive oil crust

apple pie with an olive oil crust

15 Jun 2026

Is there anything better than a piece of homemade apple pie? I think not. Each year my Grandma Sonie made apple pie for her Mother's Day morning tea and her pie was delicious. Grandma only read and wrote in Russian, so I don't have a written version of her recipe, though there may be a copy in my Mum's hand written recipe book. I created my own version when I was a teenager, adapted from a Women's Weekly recipe and since then I have made many, many apple pies.

Phil Khoury specialises in plant based baking, and I was keen to try his apple pie recipe. The filling uses both the apple flesh and the peel, something I'd not seen before, whilst the pastry is olive oil based, something I've not made before. I was intrigued, so as soon as it was apple season, I got to work making my own version of Phil's apple pie.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 16-cm tart, adapted from a Phil Khoury recipe and you can watch Phil make the pie here. To make a larger tart please refer to the original recipe. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60 g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Apple Pie with an olive oil crust

Apple filling
500g apples (I used a mix of Pink Lady and Granny Smith apples)
75g caster sugar 
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp vanilla bean paste
1½ tsp finely grated lemon zest and 1 tsp lemon juice
15g cornflour

For the flaky pastry
225g plain flour
½ tsp fine salt
15g caster sugar
90ml olive oil
15g cooked sweet potato, cooled (see Recipe Tips below)

To assemble
¼ cup apricot jam
Soya milk or cream 
Demerara sugar, for sprinkling
Vegan ice cream or cream, to serve

Filling
Peel and core the apples, reserving the peel. Either chop the apple peel finely by hand or blend in a small food processor. Set aside.

Thinly slice the peeled apples about 2 mm thick using either a sharp knife or a mandoline. Place the thinly sliced apples into a large bowl with the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, lemon juice, zest and cornflour and toss the apples gently until everything is combined. Stand for 20 minutes.

Pastry
Prepare the flaky pastry by mixing the flour, salt and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the oil and use a silicone spatula or your hands to mix it into the flour. The oil should coat all the flour. Add the sweet potato along with 37 ml cold water and mix until the dough just comes together. Don't overmix because the dough will start to separate and become more difficult to handle.

Place two-thirds of the pastry dough between two sheets of baking paper then roll out into a large disc until it is 3-4 mm thick and about 9 inch in diameter. Roll out remaining one-third of pastry between two sheets of baking paper into a smaller (8 inch) disc that is 3 mm thick, and set aside.

Use the larger disc of pastry to line a 16 cm tart tin by removing the top sheet of baking paper and gently placing the tin on top of the pastry as a guide. Use a small sharp knife to trim the pastry around the tin, allowing for at least a 3 cm border, then remove the tart tin. Use the bottom sheet of baking paper to help flip the pastry gently into the tin, then carefully ease into the shape of the tin with your fingertips leaving any excess overhanging.

Chill the pastry in the fridge for 15 minutes, then use the tip of a small knife to ‘dock' the base with a few pricks, about 2 cm apart, to stop the base from puffing up. If blind-baking the pastry (see recipe tip), preheat the oven to 190°C, conventional/170°C fan forced. Scrunch up some baking paper, then unfurl it and press into the pastry-lined tart case and fill it with rice or baking beans. Bake for 18 minutes or until nicely golden. If the edges are browning too early, cover them with a piece of kitchen foil. Remove and allow to cool.

If not blind baking the pie, place a baking tray, on which the tart tin can sit while baking, on the middle rack. Preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional/180°C fan. 

Spoon the apricot jam over the base of the tart, then arrange the finely chopped apple peels over the jam and then gently layer the sliced apples on top, stacking to fill all the gaps. There will be some liquid leftover from the apples, so stir to agitate any settled cornflour and drizzle it slowly over the pie. You can push the apples into a slight domed shape, if you like.

Brush the overhanging edge of the piecrust with water, then place the smaller disc of pastry over the apples and press the edges together. Trim and crimp the edges as you like. Brush the soya milk or cream across the top of the pastry and sprinkle some demerara sugar on top for a tantalising crunch. Use a sharp knife to cut some steam holes – I like one in the centre then six in a little burst radiating from it.

Place the tart on the preheated tray then bake for 20 minutes. Rotate the tin and bake for another 20–25 minutes, until golden brown all over. Remove from the oven and leave to stand for at least 30 minutes. Serve warm with a scoop of vegan ice cream or regular cream or ice cream if not vegan.

Recipe tips
Prepare the sweet potato in advance, preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional or 180°C fan forced and bake whole sweet potatoes for 45 minutes. When cooked, halve and scoop out the soft potato inside. Cool completely before weighing and mashing with a fork ready to use in the recipe.

If using a metal tin, you do not need to blind bake the pastry case. Other tart dishes made from glass or ceramics do not conduct heat as well, so in this case you will need to blind bake the tart case as described above.

Once cooked, the apple pie keeps well in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 4 days. When it’s cooled completely, slice from the fridge then reheat in the oven or microwave. 

The apple pie was so delicious and the olive oil pastry was a revelation. I had no problem lining the tart tin but I had some trouble getting the top crust in place without it cracking. The raw sugar topping covered up any flaws and once baked the olive oil crust was really crisp and it stayed that way for a few days. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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cocoa meringue roulade

cocoa meringue roulade

8 Jun 2026

I made a roulade to celebrate my friend's birthday but rather than my tried and true recipe, I used a different recipe because change is supposed to be a good thing. I turned to Natalie Paull's cocoa meringue roulade recipe because she's the goddess of baking. My usual recipe uses whole eggs whilst this roulade only uses egg whites, so really its a rolled pavlova by another name.

The roulade has a crunchy texture unlike my usual roulade and I took it my friend’s place interested to see how it compared to my old faithful recipe.

Here's the recipe for you which makes an 8 x 12 inch roulade. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20-ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20C

Cocoa meringue roulade - serves 4-6
Ingredients
120g egg whites (about 4)
pinch cream of tartar
200g caster sugar
35g dutch cocoa, plus extra to dust
5g vanilla essence or paste
pinch salt

For the filling
300g pure cream 
5g vanilla bean paste
1 punnet of your favourite berries (I used a mix of raspberries and strawberries)

Method

Preheat oven to 150˚C, fan forced or 170˚C, conventional. Line a 8 x 12 inch flat tray with canola spray and baking paper.

Using a stand mixer, place the egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl, attach the whisk and put the stand mixer onto a medium-high speed. Whisk the whites until they reach firm peaks but are not chunky - they should still look creamy. (note: you can also use electric beaters or whisk by hand).

Add half of the sugar gradually, a scant tablespoon at a time to start with, then two at a time as the mix gets glossy and firm. Add the vanilla.

Stir the cocoa, salt and remaining sugar together and add all at once to the meringue (turn the machine off, add the cocoa mix, and wrap a teatowel around the mixer before turning the machine on again as the cocoa can go everywhere). Mix for 10 seconds then complete the mixing process with a spatula. Don't overmix or the meringue will get 'soupy'.

Scrape the meringue mix out onto the prepared tray and smooth out with an offset spatula leaving a centimetre or so margin, as the meringue will puff and spread when baking. Once spread, the meringue should be approximately one centimetre high. If using a tin with higher sides spread it all the way to the edge.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the top feels like a crunchy pillow. Cool the meringue completely (about 30 minutes). Check for residual warmth before adding the cream and assembling. The meringue can be prepared the day before filling.

Whip cream and vanilla to soft, supple peaks. Dust a sheet of clingwrap (slightly larger than the meringue) with cocoa powder. Flip the meringue onto the clingwrap, and carefully peel off the baking powder. Trim the sides of the meringue. The shorter side of the meringue should be facing you.

Spread the whipped cream over the meringue, leaving a 2.5 centimetre wide un-creamed strip along the top. Scatter the berries over the cream, making sure there is a good strip of berries along the bottom, because that will form the centre of the finished roulade.

Use the clingwrap to pull up the start of the roll, and tuck the meringue in along the length of the sheet, to get it started. Holding the clingwrap, roll it up using your fingers underneath to guide it. Use a repetitive lift and roll motion until you do a final full roll to reach the end of the meringue, with the seam underneath. To position the roulade onto a plate, roll the wrapped roulade so that the seam is at the top, flip it directly onto the plate, and unwrap the clingwrap. To serve, slice on a diagonal using a hot, serrated knife.

As I made this for a birthday, I don't have a cut slice to share with you but I can tell you that it was a big hit with the birthday girl and her twin daughters (who licked their plates clean!).

See you again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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hazlenut and polenta lemon drizzle bundt cake

hazlenut and polenta lemon drizzle bundt cake

1 Jun 2026

I do love a bundt cake and in fact I recently purchased another bundt tin to add to my collection. I was browsing through my copy of 'Around the Table" by Julia Busuttil Nishimura and when I saw the photo of her hazelnut and polenta lemon drizzle cake, I decided to bundtify it.

All the ingredients were in my pantry so I set to work modifying the original recipe to fit my bundt tin. The recipe isn't available online and I did make a few minor changes to the original. My batter was loose so I used less lemon juice in the batter but I added a lemon drizzle to the cake once it was baked.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 5-cup bundt cake or 20-cm cake, adapted from a Julia Busuttil recipe inspired by this post. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Hazelnut & polenta lemon drizzle bundt cake 
Ingredients
130g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
100g full-fat plain yoghurt
100mls extra-virgin olive oil
zest of 1½ lemons
30mls lemon juice
40g fine polenta
65g hazelnut meal

pinch seasalt flakes

100g self-raising flour

Lemon drizzle
20 mls lemon juice
1 tbs caster sugar

Lemon icing
100g pure icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp melted butter
juice of about ½ lemon

optional

a few toasted hazelnuts

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Thoroughly grease and flour a 5-cup bundt tin or grease and line a 20-cm round cake tin with baking paper.

In a large bowl, whisk the caster sugar and eggs together until pale and well combined. You can do this in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, but by hand is fine too. Add the vanilla bean paste, yoghurt, olive oil and lemon zest and juice and mix together until combined. Whisk in the polenta, the hazelnut meal, and the salt flakes. Now sift the flour into the bowl and very gently whisk the batter until the flour has just incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake at 180°C, conventional for 35-40 minutes for the bundt cake or 45-50 minutes for the 20-cm cake or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. 

While the cake is baking, make the lemon drizzle by mixing the lemon juice and sugar together. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, loosen with a knife before dousing with the lemon drizzle. If using a bundt tin, cool in the tin for 10 minutes before inverting. Otherwise cool in the tin briefly, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

To make the lemon icing, mix the icing sugar, melted butter and enough lemon juice to create a thick, pourable icing. Add a little lemon juice at a time, then slowly add more until it is the desired consistency. 

Drizzle the icing over the cake and set aside until the icing has hardened. If you like, you can decorate the cake with a few toasted hazelnuts. 

The cake will keep for 2-3 days in an airtight container.

You can't go wrong with a drizzle cake, can you?

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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