French and British baking: a love story

Today, I find some rhubarb in the market and make a cake inspired by a French recipe with a crumb topping inspired by an American one.

When I visited the Soeurs Délicieuses stall at the Abbaye de Valmagne last weekend, I was reminded how much French people enjoy traditional English baking and puddings. These two South African sisters have created a whole business around making pies, cakes, biscuits and crumpets which would look perfectly at home at a Yorkshire village fête. In fact, tell no one, but their pork pie was better than some pork pies I have had in Yorkshire. (I am thinking of the one S picked up for me in a fancy farm shop outside of Easingwold. I bit into it to find some kind of malevolent spirit had spooned chutney beneath the lid as a sort of hex on happiness.)

They told me that they sold mince pies all year round, because French people didn’t know that we only eat them at Christmas. It made me think about our first Christmas here. I made mince pies for all the people who’d helped us in our first few months and packaged them up with Christmas cards. This was before I realised Christmas cards are almost as unheard of in France as mince pies, so some of the recipients made a very good effort of trying to disguise their confusion with gratitude. Then one day in January, I was walking to the market and our estate agent chased me down the street. “Thank you for the mince-y pies!” Vindication. Approbation.

Since then, though no one has chased me down the street, I’ve learned that many French people enjoy traditional British baking, such as shortbread, coffee and walnut cake, Bakewell tarts and hot cross buns, and puddings such as trifle, sticky toffee pudding and summer pudding. Of course, there are comforting, homey crossovers too, such as rice pudding and bread and butter pudding (pain perdu) which we will all claim as our own.

But the pudding it seems to me that is dearest to French hearts is le crumble, in all its forms, savoury and sweet. In trad bistros a crumble of some sort often sits alongside crème brûlée in the sweetest entente cordiale.

When I was at the market yesterday, I saw some beautiful rhubarb and was going to bring it home and do what I almost always do with it – roast it with a little of sugar or honey and the zest and juice of an orange, and then use the compote on Greek yoghurt for breakfast. But then I thought, you know I haven’t done any baking for a while, so why not put it in a crumble? Why not in a cake? Why not in a cake that is also a crumble? Stuff like this is why I don’t need to do crosswords or Wordle.

I decided to make an almond cake, because almonds and rhubarb go so beautifully together, and I used as my starting point an amandier, the classic French flourless cake because it’s sturdy enough to hold a layer of roasted rhubarb without it all sinking to the bottom, stickily. Then, given this whole thing started with dreams of crumble, I made an unexpected swerve. Unbidden, thoughts of Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen’s excellent New York Crumb Cake leapt into my head, with its delicious rubble of a topping.

This is how you make a recipe. You pull on a thousand threads of memory, taste and pleasure until they’re lying on the floor like a ball of wool the cat harried into submission. Then, thread by thread, spoon by spoon, you knit them all back together.

And another thing…

I wrote about how planting a garden helped me put down roots in a new country for Good Housekeeping. It’s here if you fancy giving it a read.

Rhubarb crumb not crumble cake

This is a dense and delicious almond cake with a layer of sweet-tart rhubarb and a crunchy, chewy almond topping. As with all the best capsule wardrobes, you can mix and match each element. Make the almond cake on its own to serve with tea or coffee, spoon the roasted rhubarb over Greek yoghurt or vanilla ice cream, scatter the crumb topping on top of other cakes or tray bakes. Use each element to create your own recipes.

Makes one 23cm cake

For the crumb topping
140g butter, melted
140g plain flour
120g light brown sugar
50g ground almonds
40g flaked almonds

For the rhubarb
400g rhubarb
60g caster sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
1 unwaxed orange

For the almond cake
5 eggs
80g caster sugar
50g light brown sugar
250g ground almonds
½ tsp fine salt
80g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
80g crème fraîche
Finely-grated zest of an unwaxed orange
2 tsp vanilla extract
A little icing sugar

Crème fraîche, to serve

First, make the crumb topping. In a bowl, stir together the butter, flour, sugar and ground almonds (save the flaked almonds for later) until everything is very well combined into a thick paste. Press the mixture down into the bottom of a bowl into a roughly even layer and refrigerate while you get on with the rest.

Next, roast the rhubarb. Line a roasting tin with baking parchment. Heat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Trim the ends from the rhubarb then cut it into approximately 8cm pieces and put them into the roasting tin. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar and cornflour then scatter it over the rhubarb. Using a Microplane grater or other fine grater, grate the orange zest directly over the rhubarb, being careful not to remove any of the white pith. Toss the rhubarb well then lay it all out in straight rows in the tin in an even layer. Squeeze over the juice of half the orange, about 3tbsp, then cover tightly with foil. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the foil, gently tilt the tin and use a spoon to gather up the juices and baste the rhubarb. Bake, uncovered, for a further 5-10 minutes, until the rhubarb is tender but still holds it shape. Let the rhubarb cool while you get on with everything else.

Reduce the oven temperature to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Lightly butter a 23cm springform cake tin, line the base and sides with baking parchment and butter the parchment.

In a mixing bowl using a hand beater or in a stand mixer (you can do this by hand, just with a whisk, but you need patience and strong arms – if that’s you, congratulations), beat together the eggs and sugar until the mixture is light and foamy and the beaters leave a ribbon trail when you lift them up from the mixture.

With a rubber spatula, fold in the ground almonds and the salt.

In a small bowl, combine the melted butter and crème fraiche and then fold it into the cake mixture.

Grate the orange zest directly over the cake mixture, being careful not to remove any of the white pith and fold that in with the vanilla extract.

Pour the mixture into prepared cake tin and gently smooth the top with the spatula. Carefully arrange a layer of roast rhubarb on top. Next, break the crumb topping into small and large chunks and scatter it on top of the rhubarb.

Put the cake tin on a baking sheet, place it in the oven and bake for 40 minutes. Carefully remove the cake from the oven and sprinkle on the flaked almonds. Return to the oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes, until the flaked almonds are golden and a skewer or a small sharp knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes with no crumbs clinging to it – it will be damp because of the rhubarb, but it shouldn’t be “crumby”.

Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 10 minutes, before releasing the sides of the tin and putting the cake on a wire rack to cool completely. This cake keeps quite well in a tin for two or three days.

Sprinkle with icing sugar if you like, and serve with crème fraîche

Printable Recipe

Rhubarb Crumb Not Crumble Cake

123KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Market haul, May 20, 2025

This week’s market haul comprises: a boned shoulder of lamb (I am making a navarin d’agneau printanier from this, which I’ll share with you at the weekend), jalapeňo chillies, shallots, onions, cherry tomatoes, parsley, eggs, French beans, peas, the first Charentais melon of the year, radishes, a multigrain loaf I had sliced or I would just eat it in massive doorsteps, a couple of sticks of celery, fresh garlic, rhubarb, carrots, spring onions, lemons, turnips, green and yellow courgettes, AND FINALLY LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE FIRST CHERRIES OF THE YEAR BOW DOWN.