Mousehole Cake

• Grease baking tray (the size of an oven). Then the cake will be as high as in the photos. If you don't like the cake so flat, just take a smaller rectangular shape. This will make the cake taller, but it will result in fewer pieces. My recommendation to bake it "flat", then it gets its typical consistency. Preheat the oven to 180 °.

Dough:

• Mix the butter, sugar and vanilla sugar until creamy. Add eggs and continue to beat thoroughly. Mix the flour with the baking powder and sift into the pre-dough. Stir until a creamy batter is formed. (From experience 1 - 2 min.) If you have baking experience, you can of course also mix all the ingredients at once, but the aforementioned method is more advisable for beginners.

Streusel:

• Beat the butter and sugar again until smooth. Then mix the cocoa with the flour and add to the butter and sugar mixture. Then mix it well with the hand mixer and stir on medium speed until the crumble can be seen. It can be bigger lumps, the tastier the cake will be.

Completion:

• Spread the batter evenly on the baking sheet (I didn't use parchment paper, but I think it wouldn't have been wrong). Add the crumble generously, leaving larger gaps.

• Now put the cake in the oven for about 30-3 A smaller, taller cake takes a little longer. So use a wooden stick to check whether the dough still sticks when you pierce it. If so, leave it in the oven and only take it out when it is no longer the case. The stick test is not necessary with an ordinary baking sheet. If the cake is light, but golden-brown in color and the edges look cross, it must be removed from the oven immediately so that it does not dry out. So rather less baking time than too long-

• The crumbles sink in during baking, creating small hollows and holes. Hence the name of the cake.

• If you like, you can brush it with ewtas liquid butter while it is still warm and sprinkle it with normal sugar. But that was too powerful for me, and I don't think it's necessary at all. But as everyone likes .........

Annotation:

• The sunken crumble and the consistency of the dough make it really "marzipan-like", i.e. it is a dry cake, but it is still really juicy. It is very easy to bake and freeze in advance. If you have a surprise visitor, you simply slide it into the 200 ° oven for 2 - 3 minutes and you can serve it immediately - even a little warm.

• But it is also delicious if it has been stored in the refrigerator beforehand. Then it becomes a bit firm and really has the consistency of marzipan.