The Easiest and Only Streuselkuchen Recipe You Need -
Summer is here and with it come all the yummy fruits!
It is also the perfect time to make fruit cakes. While I sometimes like to make something more elaborate, I just love to have an easy, quick, and delicious recipe in my back pocket: enter the Streuselkuchen recipe.
Streuselkuchen is simply the German word for crumb cake. You might know that I grew up in Germany where especially Pflaumenstreuselkuchen (plum crumb cakes) are very popular.
However, the beauty of this recipe is that it is very versatile. Today, I am making it with blueberries but you could make it with almost any fruit: apples, raspberries, apricots, cherries, or whatever you have. Please read on to learn some simple adaptions to this recipe depending on what kind of fruit you are using.
This Streuselkuchen is made with flour, sugar, vanilla, salt, butter, hazelnuts/filberts, and lemon juice and/or cinnamon.
As for the flour, I most often use spelt flour. But you can use any flour you have. Regular AP flour is great, as is Einkorn. If you like a deeper, nuttier flavor, you can even use a whole grain flour of wheat, spelt, or Einkorn. Bonus if you mill your own grains.
Most of the time, I use organic cane sugar. If you don’t mind a darker color of the cake and the crumb topping, you could also use coconut sugar. However, I don’t think that honey would work in this recipe.
I like to make my own vanilla sugar and vanilla extract. You can use either one in this recipe.
Even though this Streuselkuchen recipe isn’t very sweet, salt highlights the sweetness and makes the cake tastes less flat – if you know what I mean.
Of course, we’ll need butter. Unfortunately, I don’t often have enough of my own butter so I use store-bought. I always recommend you use the highest quality ingredients you can afford. Therefore, I absolutely love using the unsalted Kerry Gold butter because of its higher fat content and lower moisture. Any European-style butter will work but just use what you have!
The hazelnuts or filberts are the ‘secret’ ingredient in this recipe. They add both a nutty and deeper flavor this this Streuselkuchen as well as extra crunchiness. If you don’t have a way to grind the hazelnuts or you can’t find them, you can substitute with almond meal. Or leave them out entirely, if you’re avoiding nuts.
Depending on the type of fruit you’re using for this cake, you might add some lemon juice and/or cinnamon powder. For this recipe, I am using blueberries so I am adding the juice of ½ lemon to make them a bit brighter. If I am using plums, I love to add about 1 tsp of cinnamon. Raspberries could taste great without those additions but feel free to use your own imagination!
Oftentimes, crumb cake or Streuselkuchen recipes use a dough for the bottom and another recipe for the crumb topping. I, on the other hand, created a recipe for which you only make one dough that is both the bottom and the topping. And best of all, you can make it all in one bowl!
While not absolutely necessary, I prefer making this recipe in my Kitchen Aid food processor. I use it to grind the nuts first and then add the remaining ingredients. However, you can use another appliance to grind the nuts – or buy hazelnut or almond meal.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a food processor. Simply use nut meal and a pastry cutter or even a fork!
You can bake this in a springform pan or glass baking dish. Lining the bottom of your pan or dish with parchment paper makes it very easy to transfer the cake. Also, that way clean-up is a cinch.
First, I grind about one cup (about 100g) of hazelnuts in the food processor. I like it when there are still some chunkier nut pieces but you can also grind them into a finer flour.
Next, I add 2 cups (about 300 g) of flour, ½ (about 150g) cup of sugar, 1 good teaspoon of vanilla sugar or extract, and ¼ tsp of salt. I’ll pulse this a few times to mix it up.
Then I take the 8 oz (about 230g) of butter out of the refrigerator, cut it in chunks, and add them to the dry ingredients in the food processor. Either pulsing or turning it on continuously, I mix everything up.
At this point, you should have a dough that is not completely uniform. In other words, you should see some chunks. If the dough is too dry, you can add a little bit of very cold water until is just comes together.
Now, line your springform pan with parchment paper. If you’re not using that, grease your dish with some avocado oil or butter.
Transfer about one half of this dough into your baking dish and gently press it evenly in. Put about 1 pound of fruit on top. Crumble the remaining dough on top of the fruit.
Bake for 40-55 minutes at 350˚F (180˚C) or until the crumbs are golden brown.
Kitchen Aid food processor: https://amzn.to/3j61ysF
Pastry Blender: https://amzn.to/3xGGPiS
10″ Springform pan: https://amzn.to/35HLhSG
Parchment paper: https://amzn.to/3j1eks4
Hazelnuts: https://amzn.to/3qgd2ep
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The Easiest and Only Streuselkuchen Recipe You Need -
Recipe details
- 1 cake
- Prep time: 10 Minutes Cook time: 50 Minutes Total time: 1 hr
Comments
Share your thoughts, or ask a question!
Can't wait to try this with some ice cream!
This sounds good, but there are some things left a bit too vague in the recipe: how many servings does it make -- or at least, what size is the cake? If you opt to leave out the hazelnuts, that's one cup less ingredient -- does that make the recipe much smaller; that's nearly half the dry ingredients. What size springform pan? I have three sizes in my kitchen. Good effort, but I'll probably check elsewhere for recipes like it.