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.