Vegan Crumb Cake Tray Bake – with Quark-Oil Dough & Thick Crumbs

Some cakes simply disappear from the baking tray quickly.
This one usually also sparks discussions about why it tastes so ridiculously good.

Maybe it’s the soft vegan quark-oil dough instead of a classic yeast dough. Maybe it’s the thick, slightly crunchy crumbs that tend to mysteriously “disappear” straight from the tray whenever nobody is looking.

The recipe originally comes from my mom and belongs to the kind of cakes that somehow always work: uncomplicated, versatile and incredibly good with almost any fruit.

Whether you make it with apples, plums, prune plums or rhubarb – this crumb cake has a very high chance of disappearing quickly.

Quick Overview

🕒 Preparation time: about 20-30 minutes
🔥 Baking time: about 30 minutes
👩🏼‍🍳 Difficulty: easy

Ingredients (for one baking tray)

Cake Dough

• 150 g Alpro Skyr or vegan quark alternative
• 6 tbsp plant milk (e.g. oat or soy milk)
• 6 tbsp oil
• 75 g sugar
• 1 packet vanilla sugar (about 8 g)
• pinch of salt
• 300 g wheat flour
• 1 packet baking powder (about 15 g)

Fruit Topping

• 1–1,5 kg fruit of choice (e.g. apples, plums, prune plums or rhubarb)

Crumbs

• 300 g wheat flour
• 150 g sugar
• 1 packet vanilla sugar (about 8 g)
• pinch of ground cinnamon
• 150 g vegan margarine (room temperature)

Instructions

Prepare the Dough Base

1. Mix the vegan quark with the plant milk, oil, sugar, vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt.
2. Combine the flour and baking powder. Stir about half of it into the quark mixture first.
3. Then knead in the remaining flour mixture until a smooth dough forms.
4. Roll out the dough on a floured surface slightly larger than the baking tray and place it onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Pull up a small edge around the sides.

Prepare the Fruit

1. For the apple version: peel, core and cut into thin slices.
2. For the plum or prune plum version: wash, halve and remove the pits. Lightly score the fruit halves 2–3 times. Place them cut side up onto the cake.

3. For the rhubarb version: remove leaves and ends, wash and peel thick stalks if necessary. Cut into pieces about 1–1.5 cm long. Tip: If the rhubarb is very sour, lightly sugar it beforehand and let it sit for 10–15 minutes. Gently squeeze it afterwards. The released liquid works great in sparkling water, soy yogurt or homemade syrup.

5. Spread the prepared fruit evenly over the dough base.
6. Preheat the oven to 200 °C top/bottom heat or 175 °C fan.

Prepare the Crumbs

7. Add all dry ingredients for the crumbs to a bowl.
8. Add the soft margarine in small pieces and mix everything with a hand mixer until crumbly.
9. For the typical thick crumbs, squeeze portions of dough together by hand and distribute different-sized crumbs evenly over the fruit.

10. Bake the cake for about 30 minutes, until the crumbs are lightly golden.

Serving Suggestion

Served slightly warm with vanilla sauce or vegan vanilla ice cream, this cake becomes genuinely dangerous.