Image is for illustrative purposes only.
Streusel is the simple buttery crumble that goes over tarts, cakes, buns and fruit bakes. It is nothing more than butter, sugar and flour rubbed together with a little egg, vanilla, salt and fresh lemon zest, and it bakes into golden, sandy, slightly crisp nuggets that hold their shape on top of a cake instead of melting into it.
The lemon zest is what lifts it above a plain crumble: it keeps the buttery sweetness fresh and makes the topping smell wonderful as it bakes. Make a batch, keep it in the freezer in crumbs, and you can scatter it straight onto whatever you are baking without thawing.
Ingredients
The weights in the recipe table below will yield the following 'weight per unit' and 'number of units'. If you would like to change the recipe to cater to a different 'weight per unit' and/or 'number of units',
you can use the Recipe Calculator Tool below the ingredients table.
Note: The Recipe Calculator Tool is available to subscribers.
Weight Per Unit: 1566
Number of Units: 1
Unit Size: batch of about 1.5 kg crumble, enough to top four 24 cm cakes or tarts
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WEIGHT
(grams)
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ALTERNATIVE METRIC
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INGREDIENT
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IMAGE
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CONDITION
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A
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500 |
17.6 ounces
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Butter
Butter is a solid dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk, to separate the butterfat from the buttermilk. It is generally used as a spread on plain or toasted bread products and a condiment on cooked vegetables, as well as in cooking, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying. Butter consists of butterfat, milk proteins and water.
unsalted
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cold, diced |
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B
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500 |
17.6 ounces
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Sugar
Sugar is the generalized name for sweet, short-chain, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. They are carbohydrates, composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. There are various types of sugar derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose (also known as dextrose), fructose and galactose. The table or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide. (In the body, sucrose hydrolyses into fructose and glucose.) Other disaccharides include maltose and lactose. Longer chains of sugars are called oligosaccharides. Chemically-different substances may also have a sweet taste, but are not classified as sugars. Some are used as lower-calorie food substitutes for sugar described as artificial sweeteners.
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C
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500 |
17.6 ounces
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Cake Flour
Cake flour is a finely milled white flour made from soft wheat. It has very low protein content, between 8% and 10%, making it suitable for soft-textured cakes and cookies. The higher protein content of other flours would make the cakes tough. Highly sifted cake flours may require different volume amounts in recipes than all-purpose flour. Using the scoop and level method, well-sifted flour usually produces 125 g per cup. However, most American recipes are written with 140 g of flour per cup, so weighing and experimentation can be helpful in baking unfamiliar recipes. Small weight differences can greatly affect the texture. American Cake flour is bleached; in countries where bleached flour is prohibited, plain flour can be treated in a domestic microwave to improve the texture of the end product.
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sifted |
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D
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50 |
1 Whole Egg
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Whole Egg
Eggs are one of the most common ingredients in a typical cake. Egg yolks and whole eggs store significant amounts of protein and choline, and are widely used in baking. Usually an eggs role in a cake is to add moisture and richness, act as a raising agent as well as a glue to bind the ingredients together.
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lightly beaten |
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E
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5 |
1 teaspoon
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Vanilla Essence
Vanilla Extract is made with 100% pure vanilla beans. With a sweet, syrupy consistency, this Vanilla is ideal for use in icings, drinks and whipped cream as well as classic baking recipes. Vanilla Essence is commercially manufactured by chemicals and is more of a watery consistency as opposed to vanilla extract which is thicker and a lot fuller and richer in flavour. You can replace one with the other but use 50% more of essence. For example, for 1 teaspoon of extract, use 1.5 teaspoons of essence.
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F
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1 |
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Salt
Common salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in its natural form as a crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantities in seawater, where it is the main mineral constituent; the open ocean has about 35 grams (1.2 oz) of solids per litre, a salinity of 3.5%. Salt is essential for animal life, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous of food seasonings, and salting is an important method of food preservation.
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G
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10 |
0.4 ounce
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Lemon Zest
Lemon zest is the thin, brightly coloured outer layer of the lemon skin, removed with a fine grater or zester without taking the bitter white pith underneath. It holds the fruit's aromatic oils and gives a fresh citrus lift to batters and creams.
fresh
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finely grated |
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1566
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Recipe Calculator Tool
Using this tool, you can alter this recipe for your own requirements. Use the two fields below to generate new weights for the ingredients above.
STEP 1. Enter your Custom Weight Per Unit
The 'Custom Weight Per Unit' is already loaded with the weight per unit for this recipe but can be changed if required. If all you wish to do is change the number of units (or servings), just leave the current weight per unit.
STEP 2. Enter your Custom Number of Units
This is the number of units (or servings) you want this recipe to yield.
STEP 3. Click Calculate
The new weights for your adjusted recipe will be displayed in the table above.
Method
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STEP
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ACTION
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DETAIL
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CONDITION
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1 |
Prepare |
Have A (butter) cold and cut into small cubes, and sift C (cake flour) into a large bowl. |
Butter firm, not soft or greasy |
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2 |
Rub |
Add A and B (butter and caster sugar) to the flour and rub everything together with your fingertips, or mix on low speed with a paddle. |
Mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs, no large lumps of butter left |
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3 |
Flavour |
Add E, F and G (vanilla essence, salt and lemon zest) and toss through. |
Zest evenly spread through the crumbs |
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4 |
Bind |
Add D (whole egg) and mix only briefly, just until the mixture starts to clump into small irregular pieces. |
Crumbs hold together when squeezed but the mixture is still loose, never a smooth dough |
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5 |
Rest |
Spread the crumble on a tray and chill for at least 30 minutes. |
Firm and cold, so the pieces keep their shape |
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6 |
Use |
Scatter the cold crumble over cakes, tarts, buns or fruit before baking, or bake it on its own on a lined tray at 170°C (340°F) for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring once. |
Golden, dry and crisp; it firms up further as it cools |
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7 |
Store |
Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for up to three months. |
Use straight from the freezer, no thawing needed |
Important Notes
The halved recipe makes about 1.5 kg of crumble, enough to top around four 24 cm cakes or tarts, or a large slab of fruit bake. Keep the mixture cold right up to the moment it goes on the cake; warm streusel spreads and melts instead of staying in crumbs. If your crumbs come out too fine, squeeze handfuls together and break them apart again to make bigger nuggets. It freezes very well in crumb form, so make a full batch and use it as you need it.
Tools & Arrangements
Large mixing bowl, or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment; fine grater or zester for the lemon; digital scales; baking tray and baking paper; airtight container for storage.
