Gooseberry Crumble & Custard Cake

Not only is this delicious dessert easy to prepare it is low in calories and packed full of Vitamin C too!

Firstly make the topping by gently rubbing together the flour and butter until it resembles bread crumbs. Stir in the demerara then slowly sprinkle in 1tbsp of water stirring with a knife to create some small clumps in the mixture. Set aside.
Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan and butter and line a 23cm loose bottom cake tin.
Put the gooseberries in a saucepan with the sugar and 1tbsp water and gently heat for 5 mins until they are softened. Some will burst and some will stay whole but they shouldn’t be mushy. Set aside to cool.
To make the cake put the butter, flour, baking powder, eggs, sugar, cardamom, ground almonds, vanilla and ⅔ of the custard in a large bowl and beat together until you have a smooth, light batter. Spoon ⅓ of the batter into the cake tin and spread out to the edges. Dot over half of the gooseberries, leaving behind as much juice as possible then spoon over ⅓ more cake mix and spread out as well as possible. Layer the rest of the well-drained gooseberries and then spoon and spread the remaining batter on top, it doesn’t need to be even. Keep the gooseberry juice to serve with the cake.
Drizzle and drip the reserved custard over the top then tip on the crumble topping spreading out to the edges.
Put the cake tin on a baking tray (to catch any drips) and bake in the oven for 1hr - 1h 15minutes until cooked through. Allow the cake to cool in the tin then gently release from the tin and serve with the reserved gooseberry juice and extra custard or cream.

Serves: 10
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 75 min