I have to say, I think this is probably the easiest and best cake I have ever made (I am still trying to overcome the emotional horror of the experimental courgette cake I made last month). Crunchy and buttery on the top, with the warm spice making you want to curl up with tea and a blanket, it has all the joy of a home-made cinammon roll, with none of that kneading and proving malarkey. Best of all, there is no weighing involved, just one standard 250ml cup.
It is delicious served warm with coffee, but will keep well in a tin if you manage to fight everyone off it long enough. It is also particularly good when eaten secretly standing in the kitchen at 4am.
Ingredients
For the cake;
3 cups of self raising flour
1 cup of demerara sugar
1 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup of milk
2 eggs
For the cinammon streusel topping;
1 cup demerara sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinammon
1/3 250g block of of unsalted butter
Method
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and grease and line a 9 x 13 inch brownie tin. Melt the butter on the stove and set aside, then mix together the cinnamon and sugar for the crunchy topping in a small bowl.
Tip all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and stir into a smooth, thick batter. Spoon half of the batter into the cake tin, and scatter on half the sugar/cinammon topping mix, then repeat. (The second dollop of mixture might not look like there will be enough to cover the first, but blob it out fairly evenly and coax it to the corners with the back of a clean teaspoon and it will be fine!). Finally pour over the saucepan full of melted butter and bake for 30-35 minutes.
