It’s October now and I couldn’t decide if this post should therefore feature apples or pumpkins… until I realized that together they would make a perfect autumn cake!

The markets are full with huge varieties of both at the moment, which is a lovely sight – pink, red and green apples next to yellow, orange and green pumpkins – I got a few of each.

For this cake I chose some crisp, juicy apples and a green Hokkaido pumpkin, the very mild/sweet pumpkin variety. The pumpkin gets grated into the dough and the apples on top are covered under an almond crumble mix, for an extra crunch – delish!

• 100g almonds
• 100g wholemeal flour combined with 150g plain flour (you can just go with plain flour but I like the extra nuttiness that a bit of wholemeal flour adds)
• 150g sugar
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 200g unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp honey
• 750g apples
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 250g Hokkaido pumpkin
• 1 sachet of vanilla sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 75g cornflour
• ½ sachet of OR 8g baking powder
• 1 tsp icing sugar
• a round spring cake tin (26cm diameter)

Chop the almonds into rough chunks. Combine those with 125g flour, 50g sugar and the cinnamon. In the microwave melt 75g butter and the honey, then pour it over the almond-flour mix and crumble everything together.

Core, peel and cut the apples in wedges by quartering them and, and then cutting the quarters once more so you have 8 wedges per apple. Mix the apple wedges with the lemon juice and set aside.

Cut and peel the pumpkin – this may sound easier than it is, as the pumpkin skin can be extremely tough but bear with it! Weigh out 125g of the pumpkin flesh and grate it.

With an electric whisk mix the 125g margarine, 100g sugar, vanilla sugar and salt until smooth and creamy. Add one egg, followed by 25g cornflour, whisk again, then add the other egg.

In a separate bowl mix 125g flour, 50g cornflour and baking powder. Add this, along with the grated pumpkin to the egg mix.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius and grease and flour your cake tin.

Spread the cake mix in it and top with the apple wedges. Now sprinkle the crumble over and bake for around 45 minutes, before cooling the cake on a wire rack.

Dust with icing sugar when serving and, if you want some more calories and have this cake in the afternoon rather than the morning, have a dollop of whipped cream with it.