BLUEBERRY AND LEMON MUFFIN CAKE

On many occasions I have felt compelled to make a cake from a recipe as soon as possible after I saw it in a book or on the internet.  This one was so compelling that I made it the same day!

I spotted it in a recent edition of the Guardian online where it appears as a cherry muffin cake.  The writer suggests you can adapt it to use other fruit and I happened to have a punnet of nice chunky blueberries in the fridge, bought the day before.   We also had guests coming for dinner so all the stars were aligned!

At the time of writing, you can see the original recipe here and  I wondered what was muffin like about it.  Probably because you make it the way you would usually make muffins, i.e. not by creaming butter and sugar, or rubbing butter into flour as in the most common cake recipes.  I wondered if the cake might also not keep well as muffins are often past their best the next day.  I decided that that wouldn't matter as a fair chunk of it would be eaten on the day and even stale muffins are edible if you warm them in the microwave and serve with instant custard!

The cake looked rather craggy when it came out of the oven so I dusted it with icing sugar before serving.

I was also a bit miffed that it looked like most of the blueberries seemed to have sunk to the bottom but as the cake was cut it was clear that some hadn't so that was a relief.

It was a delicious cake, really good.  The muffin method was not easier than say an all-in-one sponge cake but easy enough AND it was most definitely not stale the next day.  In fact it kept well (I put it in the fridge because of the fresh fruit) and the last couple of slices were still good two days later.

A brilliant cake and one for the recipe box.

Ingredients

220g plain flour

200g golden caster sugar

10g baking powder (this turned out to be about 1½ tsp)

zest of 1 lemon

pinch of salt

200g Greek yoghurt (I used full fat)

100g butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

¼ tsp almond extract

200g fresh blueberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Butter and line the base of a 20cm springform cake tin.

In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients (not including the fruit!).

In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients.

Add the wet mix to the dry mix and stir well to make sure there is no unmixed flour.  Fold in the blueberries.

Pour into the prepared tin, level the top and bake for 40-50 minutes.  Mine was done in 40 minutes.

Cool in the tin.  Dust with icing sugar before serving if you like.

I served mine with a spoonful of fruit salad alongside and a blob of whipped cream.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.