Blackberry & Coconut Cake Slice

Improvisation while baking is good sometimes. Sometimes it really pays off and you end up with something delicious. Sometimes its a disaster...and sometimes it's just not quite right. That's what it felt like with this recipe that I just threw together. I had a huge container of leftover crumble sitting in my freezer from my quince and craisin crumble, because I'd been unsure of my proportions and made double to be safe. Having crumble mixture in your freezer is really handy by the way, I'm tempted to keep doing that so I can treat myself to some sort of warm, fruity crumble during the winter months that stretch ahead of us. I'm not sure how long it would keep for though?

So what to do with my crumble mixture? I picked up some frozen blackberries on special from the supermarket, so I thought about doing something with them...but after doing the quince crumble I wanted something a little different. Maybe a slice?

I always loved the thin golden brown cake from my Mum's apple crumble cake, so I quickly whipped up some of that and used it as the base of my cake slice. Then I just sprinkled a ton of berries on top.

And then noticed a bag of dessicated coconut sitting in my larder. I thought, why not?

Covered it with some crumble...

Peekaboo!

...and 40 minutes (in a 190 degrees C oven) later, voila:

Mmm the edges were really tasty and golden brown. The inside was a little too risen and light for my liking, I would probably put less baking powder in next time to make it more slicey and less cakey. And I only used about 3/4 cup of blackberries, I would probably double that to make it more balanced. And I would have mixed the coconut into the crumble rather than just sprinkling it on top of the fruit, so that it crisped up a bit in the oven.