Caramelised apple & pumpkin crumble cake

This time of year all those nice autumn winter vegetables and fruits gives me a lot of inspirations to my baking. And I love it!

So, the other day our neighbour gave us some apples from her garden and I also had a pumpkin sitting in the kitchen for a while, so I decided to make a variation of my apple crumble cake. :D

First I caramelised the diced apple and pumpkin together, then the rest was pretty much the same as the apple crumble cake. (I replaced the apple confiture to the caramelised apple and pumpkin.)

Oh, I love using pumpkins in my cakes and breads!

The nice bits of apple and pumpkin, soft and light sponge, and the sweet crumble... it cannot go wrong.

It's really a perfect comfort cake on a cold gloomy day... ;)

Have you seen my other crumbles?

Blackberyy crumble muffin

Apple crumble cake

Chestnut crumble cake

カステラ - Castella

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted here! It's not I haven't been baking. In fact, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen... but I just don't get much chance to sit down and write nowadays... ;(

Anyway, this is one of my recent hit cakes called 'かすてら(Castella)'. It's a very simple Japanese cake which originally came to Japan from Portugal in 16th century. (History is not my strongest subject so don't ask me anymore please...)

It's a sort of very light sponge cake but I would say it's more like a cross between cake and loaf.

This time I used brown sugar instead of white, then added stem ginger and a bit of rum to give the popular Japanese cake a 'Yumi twist'. ;D

It worked... It was divine...
It filled my Japanese food craving hole in my stomach...

The method of making Castella is pretty similar to a classic sponge cake (cf. my Basic Swiss Roll). However, there are a few important things that make you bake an authentic tasting and looking Castella. For example, you need strong flour not plain, and you bake in a lower temperature for a longer time than a usual cake....
Anyway, all those tips are going to be illustrated on BON APPETIT soon, so just bare with me! ;D

For now, they are the ingredients:

Strong flour 100g

Dark brown sugar 100g

Egg 4

Honey 3tbsp

Stem ginger 30-50g

Rum or water 1 tbsp