Whole Wheat Crumble Cake with Tart Jam

Pies have always been our favorite dessert, but ever since I discovered crumble cakes many years ago, I realized they suit me perfectly 😃 because they fit my often hurried and messy cooking style. And let’s face it: they always work even when the shortcrust isn’t perfect! Yes, it can happen, let’s be honest! Not to mention that they always look good in their rustic simplicity.

There are several crumble cake recipes here on the blog, the first one dates back to the very early days of the blog almost 8 years ago, the peanut crumble cake, remember? A recipe that even after many years, I continue to repeat because it’s really delicious, I mean… because we love it so much. 😊

In recent months, I’ve been working on some whole wheat desserts, and among these, a few whole wheat pies and (of course!) whole wheat crumble cakes had to be included. As it happened, the first of these was filled with my wild plum jam, which I made last summer with the mini plums I picked on a beautiful summer day… oh, how I miss the warm summer! 😀

This jam, as you know, has a slightly tart taste, but combined with the whole wheat crust was a revelation for us, we loved the pairing. So much so that my husband demanded it again loudly. 😃 And so, partly for fun and partly out of curiosity (and for the love of food!), we went through a home fair-style whole wheat crumble cake with tart jam period, testing and tasting various jams.

Once the supply of my plum jam ran out, the first “bought” jam I tried was the sour cherry one. A jam, or rather a preserve, that we like a lot and that I often buy, made with a typical IGP sour cherry variety from Emilia called sour cherry. (The adjective sour is typical of Emilia and means tart, acidic).

Then, with subsequent crumble cakes, I moved on to citrus jams (lemon and mixed citrus). And then to the must-have-at-our-house Bolognese mustard, which, for obvious and justified reasons, is very loved in our Romagna-Emilia family. Also because it is undeniably unbeatable with any type of shortcrust (even though it is, for this home experiment, the least tart among the jams we have tried so far).

You regular readers (😍) of this blog surely already know Bolognese mustard, as it is the star of these three recipes:
The raviole
Stuffed tortelli
Bolognese pinza.
If you haven’t tried it yet, click on the links and take a look! These are all recipes worth trying. 😋

I have a vague suspicion that our next whole wheat crumble cake will be filled with currant jam, and then surely it will be raspberry’s turn. In short, we will try all the tart jams available on the market, that’s my word.
Do you have any other tart jams to suggest?

👇 And here are more “crumbly” recipes:

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Economical
Rest time: 30 Minutes
Preparation time: 10 Minutes
Portions: 8
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All Seasons

Ingredients

1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2/5 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn oil
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
to taste lemon zest (grated)
1 1/3 cups tart jam or preserve (wild plum, sour cherry, currant…)

Tools

1 Springform Pan with removable base

Preparation

Prepare the shortcrust using the classic method:

Pour the two flours into a bowl.

For a completely whole wheat version, you can opt to use only whole wheat flour, but I preferred to mix it because this whole wheat flour I’m using is very coarse and excessively rustic for sweets.

Create a well to add the sugar, oil, and egg. Flavor with the lemon zest.

Work with your hands to dissolve the sugar and gradually incorporate the flour.

The mixture tends to crumble, but that’s not a problem because that’s what we want to achieve. Working with hands will form a dough, but you can stop at the ‘crumbly stage’.

Refrigerate for a short rest (20-30 minutes).
After the resting time, proceed to make the crumble cake:

Prepare the mold by lining the bottom with parchment paper.

I recommend using a springform pan because it will be easier to remove the crumble cake after baking (such as this springform pan).

The most effective way to line the bottom with parchment paper is this:
– unlatch the side, place the parchment sheet on the bottom, latch the side again, trapping the paper.

I also recommend cutting off the excess parchment paper.
Take the dough from the fridge and crumble a portion of the dough by rubbing it between your hands to drop it into the pan in coarse crumbs.

Press the crumbs with your hands, and join them together until you obtain a shortcrust base. (If the surface isn’t perfectly smooth, that’s fine).

Spread the base with jam. An optional but recommended touch is a grating of lemon zest on the jam.

Crumble the remaining dough over the jam.

Lightly press the crumbs with your fingertips to even out the surface and, above all, cover the edge well to prevent jam from leaking out during baking.

Bake at 356°F for 20 minutes, like classic pies.
Try it! I’m sure you’ll love it! 🤩

I already have all the photos ready for another whole wheat crumble cake that I photographed in every step of the process, so… see you soon with the next delicious recipe!!

In the meantime… please, have a slice!! 😃