Blackberry and yoghurt mini loaf cakes

I love blackberry-picking! We used to spend hours picking them as a family on the cliffs of Guernsey and then eating home-made blackberry and apple jam throughout the winter months.

This year’s blackberries seem to be particularly early – I picture blackberry picking as a September, even October activity, but the bushes were heavy with ripe and juicy berries when we went out last Sunday. In a short time, we filled our tub and managed to come home with 2.4kg of blackberries! Now what to do with them?!!

I froze a good pile of them (lay them out in a single layer on a baking tray and freeze them flat before then pouring the individually frozen berries into freezer bags) for future use. A scour of the internet then came up with this delicious sounding blackberry and yoghurt loaf cake on the Pudding Lane blog. I’m rather distrustful of loaf cakes – I haven’t had much luck with them in the past (they tend to end up burnt on the outside and sunken in the middle!) – and so I decided to make use of my favourite Lakeland mini loaf cake tin instead.

These cakes are quick and easy to make. The only slight change I made was dusting the blackberries with cornflour – this tends to prevent them from sinking.  The recipe is designed for a 1 kg loaf tin and so made slightly too much for my mini loaf tin: I popped the extra into 6 fairy cake cases and baked these at the same time as the loaf cakes.

I was really impressed with this recipe – it is very moist and the lemon and blackberry flavours come through strongly and work really well together! Will definitely be making these again!   

Blackberry and yoghurt mini loaf cakes

Ingredients

1. 2 eggs
2. 225g yoghurt
3. 225g caster sugar
4. 150g ground almonds
5. 100g self-raising flour
6. 1 tsp baking powder
7. 20g cornflour
8. 1 lemon
9. 150g blackberries
10. 150g icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170C.
2. Spray a mini loaf cake with cake-release spray.
3. Place sugar and eggs into a mixing bowl, then whisk for 4-5 minutes (less in a stand mixer) until the mixture is pale, airy and forms ribbons when you drag the whisk across the surface.
4. Add the yoghurt, the zest of the lemon and a pinch of salt, and fold together to mix.
5. Sieve in the almonds, flour and baking powder, and fold until the mixture is combined.
6. Sprinkle the blackberries with cornflour and then add two thirds of them to the cake mix.
7. Pour the cake mix into your prepared tin and sprinkle over the remaining blackberries (reserving 12 for decoration), pushing slightly into the top of the cakes.
8. Place the cakes in the centre of the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cakes are golden and springy.
9. Cool the cakes in the tin for about 15 minutes and then remove from the tin and place on a wire rack.
10. While it's cooling, mix the icing sugar with enough juice from the lemon to make a thick pouring consistency.
11. Pour over the cake once cool and top with a blackberry.

To make one large loaf cake: place the mixture in a 1 kg loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour.