“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.” John Done.
The nights are drawing in, the sunsets are turning the sky on fire, the mornings are becoming crisp, blackberries are plump and ripe for picking, and the sloes are turning purple, ready for picking after the first frost. Autumn, you truly are truly magical.
I’m more of a cook than a baker; I love the freedom of throwing herbs and spices together to create a stew, or using that jar of peanut butter to make a satay to stir through my noodles for a speedy supper, or looking through the cupboard and turning some lentils into a tasty dhal with only a few cupboard staples. The freedom of not having to measure everything out has always appealed to me – I’m basically lazy and don’t like to follow the rules!
However, when autumn makes an appearance, I get a newfound love for baking. Being surrounded by all of these blackberries has made me crave a simple blackberry loaf and all I’ve done is adapt the simple sponge cake recipe (4oz each of sugar, butter and flour and two eggs) and add some almonds, lemon zest and blackberries. What I love about this cake is that you can experiment – once you’ve got the basics right, you can do anything – make two sponges and fill them with cream, lemon curd, jam, fresh berries – the world’s your oyster!
You’ll need the following ingredients:
- 4oz / 100g organic unsalted butter
- 4oz / 100g self-raising flour
- 4oz / 100g caster sugar
- Two medium organic eggs
- One tablespoon of ground almonds
- Handful of blackberries
- Lemon zest (I use the zest of a whole a lemon, which gives a lovely lemony kick, but you could use half if you wanted)
P.S. I actually didn’t have any ground almonds in the cupboard, but I did have some flaked almonds so I just threw some in a pestle and mortar and ground them down.
- Firstly, heat the oven to 180C, then whilst this is preheating, wipe your loaf / cake tin with butter to stop it sticking. You could use parchment paper, but whenever I’ve greased a tin, the cake has never stuck.
- Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl – use a electric whisk if you have one (much easier), if not you’ll be putting your bingo wings through their paces.
- Beat in the eggs, ground almond and lemon zest.
- Sift the flour into the bowl and gently fold in. If the mixture seems a bit thick, add a drop of milk.
- Now add this mixture to your tin and then scatter over your blackberries. Mine were frozen (let them defrost before using) because they don’t keep for very long in the fridge and they’re handy to add to porridge, smoothies or even to make a crumble at the last minute.
- Bake for about 20-25 mins and use a skewer (wooden or metal if you have it, but you could also use a knife) to check it’s cooked before you take it out.
- Take a good look at what you’ve created, try to wait about five minutes and then cut a slice, whilst patting yourself on the back and enjoying a slice of your homemade cake.
A x
Abi in the Garden 