Maple Drizzle Cake with Crunchy Pecan Top

Why maple syrup earns a place in the cake tin

Most of us keep a bottle of maple syrup for pancake Sundays and little else, which is a waste. Maple is not simply sweet — it brings a soft, caramel-like warmth, a whisper of vanilla and a natural moisture that keeps a sponge tender for days rather than hours. In a teatime cake it does the work of both sugar and syrup, and it flatters nuts like nothing else in the store cupboard. This is a cake that suits a drizzly October afternoon as happily as a sunny June picnic.

One thing before you start: read the label. You want pure maple syrup, not a blend or a "maple-flavoured" syrup made mostly of glucose. For baking, choose an amber or dark, robust grade — the delicate golden syrups are lovely poured over porridge, but their flavour disappears once they meet butter and flour.

What you will need

• For the sponge: 225g unsalted butter, softened; 200g soft light brown sugar; 4 large eggs at room temperature; 225g self-raising flour; 1 tsp baking powder; ½ tsp fine sea salt; 3 tbsp milk; 2 tsp vanilla extract.
• For the maple soak: 100ml pure maple syrup, gently warmed, plus the juice of half a lemon.
• For the pecan top: 75g pecan halves; 40ml maple syrup; 20g unsalted butter; 1 tbsp demerara sugar; a good pinch of flaky sea salt.

You will also need a deep 20cm round tin — at least 8cm deep, or the batter will climb out — lined with greaseproof paper on the base and greased around the sides. Heat the oven to 170°C fan, 190°C conventional, gas mark 5.

Baking the sponge

First, cream the butter and sugar for a full four to five minutes, scraping the bowl down once. Soft light brown sugar gives a fudgier crumb than caster, and it echoes the maple without shouting over it. The mixture should be visibly paler and fluffy before you go any further.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating each in properly before the next. If the mixture looks like it might curdle, spoon in a tablespoon of the weighed flour alongside the egg — it settles things immediately. Beat in the vanilla.

Fold in the flour, baking powder and salt with a large metal spoon, then loosen with the milk until the batter drops reluctantly from the spoon. Scrape into the tin, level the surface and bake for 45 to 50 minutes. It is done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean, or when the centre springs back under a light press. If the top is browning too quickly after 30 minutes, lay a piece of foil loosely over it.

The maple soak — the trick that keeps it moist

Leave the cake in its tin for 10 minutes, then prick the surface all over with a fine skewer, going down about two-thirds of the way. Stir the lemon juice into the warmed maple syrup — the acidity stops the soak tasting simply sugary — and spoon it over slowly, letting each addition sink in before the next.

Resist the urge to turn the cake out straight away. Leaving it to cool completely in the tin lets the syrup redistribute through the crumb. By the time you lift it onto a plate, the base will feel damp in the best possible way.

Candied pecans for the crunchy top

While the cake cools, spread the pecan halves on a baking tray and toast them for 7 to 8 minutes at the same oven temperature, until fragrant. Watch them — nuts go from golden to bitter in under a minute.

Melt the butter in a small frying pan, add the maple syrup and demerara and let it bubble for 30 seconds. Tip in the warm pecans, stir to coat and cook for 3 to 4 minutes until the glaze thickens and clings. Scrape onto greaseproof paper, spread into a single layer, sprinkle with flaky salt and leave to set hard. Once cold, break or roughly chop the pecans and scatter them over the cake just before serving. Keep any spare shards in a jar; they are excellent crumbled over vanilla ice cream.

Serving, storing and a few swaps

This cake needs nothing more than strong tea, though a spoonful of crème fraîche or a small jug of double cream on the side is no hardship. Stored in an airtight tin it will keep for up to five days and genuinely improves on day two. If it starts to dry at the edges, brush those cut faces with a little extra maple syrup.

It also freezes beautifully: wrap the undecorated cake tightly and freeze for up to three months, defrosting overnight at room temperature and adding the pecan topping once thawed.

For variations, try any of these:

• Add the finely grated zest of an orange to the batter and use orange juice in place of the lemon in the soak.
• Swap 1 tsp of the flour for ground cinnamon, or add a pinch of ground ginger for a colder-weather version.
• Replace the milk with Greek yoghurt for a slightly tangier crumb.
• Use walnuts or hazelnuts in place of pecans, though pecans' natural buttery sweetness really is the best match.

Bake it once and it tends to become the cake you make when you want to be quietly impressive without any real effort — which, on a grey British weekend, is exactly the sort of baking most of us are after.