Very Berry Loaf Cake

Looking for a bit of inspiration in the latest edition of the Good Food magazine, I stumbled across a Very Berry Loaf Cake, from a chap who almost won last year’s Great British Bake Off. A thing about the particular programme; it’s becoming a little, well, stale. Somewhat dry. A tad soggy on the bottom. There are, after all, only so many times you can watch someone create a Bakewell Tart.

And think about the presenters, Mary & Paul. Last time I saw it the contestants had to make a three-tier cheesecake with different cakes for each tier. There were nine of them baking so that’s 27 cheesecakes. And then Mary & Paul test-tasted them all. Blurgh.

This Very Berry Loaf Cake, on the other hand, is so light and fluffy you could eat it all day. Which I am currently in the process of doing.

This one is pretty easy. You first need to find a loaf tin and some baking paper. Line the loaf tin. Then heat the oven to about 170 centigrade. A bit more if your oven runs a bit cool, a bit less if your oven runs a bit hot. Don’t know any of this about your oven? Neither do I really. After three or so years of using my oven I still don’t know what it’s going to do.

Very Berry Loaf Cake

• 225g soft unsalted butter (more or less a standard block)
• 185g golden caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 225g self-raising flour
• zest of two lemons and the juice from one of them
• 40g runny honey (plus a bit more for drizzling)
• a pack each of raspberries and blackberries
• 100g icing sugar
• a few fresh mint leaves

First whisk the butter and caster sugar together until smooth (more than five mins, less than ten).

Whisk up the eggs and then add slowly to the bowl, with a spoon of the flour (to prevent separation), whilst whisking. Add the remaining flour and the honey and stir in.

Add half the mix to the lined tin.

Put 15 berries on the top of the mix.

Spread the remaining mix carefully over the berries and then repeat laying more berries on top. Push these ones into the mix.

Pop in the oven and bake until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean (45 mins to 1 hr, again depending on the behaviour of your oven). If it looks like its getting a bit dark on top, cover with foil. Note that the high quantity of sugar and honey means this cake will go quite dark, like caramel, so don’t worry.

Finally mix the icing sugar with a spoonful of honey and the lemon juice. Drizzle some of the icing over the cake with a spoon. Layer on some more berries and then drizzle on more icing. Finally drizzle on some more honey. Lots of drizzling going on…

Now of course I didn’t eat all this. We are currently taking it on tour. First to Grannie’s…

She liked the look of it. Next. Well maybe Ma and Pa…