Lemon and Blackberry Cake
This Lemon and Blackberry cake has a superior quality. Supremely soft, smooth and serene, the lemon flavour is just subtle enough to allow the blackberry flavour to come through. The blackberry and lemon icing enhances the intensity of the cake flavour.
Servings: 14 slices
Calories:
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Alter quantities (metric only) 14 slices
Here's what you'll need...
- Bundt 10 cup tin or 2 x 23cm cake tins
Ingredients you'll need...
Lemon and Blackberry Cake
- 2 tablespoon flour to flour your Bundt tin
- 230 g unsalted butter softened but not overly-soft - plus extra for greasing tin (US = 1 Cup)
- 375 g caster sugar superfine sugar (US = 10½ tbsp)
- 4 large eggs at room temperature , in shells weight is approx 256g
- 350 g plain flour all purpose flour (US = 2½ Cups)
- 2 teaspoon baking powder must be level
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract use good quality eg Neilsen-Massey
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice use fresh lemons
- 120 ml sour cream at room temperature (US = ½ Cup)
- 120 ml milk at room temperature (US = ½ Cup)
- 120 g blackberries 30 average sized blackberries - washed and halved if large
Lemon and Blackberry Cake Topping
- 100 g blackberries about 20 average sized blackberries
- 100 g icing sugar (US = ¾ Cup)
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoon lemon zest
Here's what we do...
Lemon and Blackberry Cake
- Set your oven to 150°C Fan/170°C/340°F/Gas mark 3
- If using a Bundt tin, grease the tin by spreading softened butter over all of the insides of the tin using your pastry brush, ensure you get into all of the crevices. Then sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of flour and shake the tin to ensure it lightly covers all of the insides. Shake out any excess. If you are using sandwich tins, grease the tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper.
- Take your butter and sugar and beat together until they are soft, lighter in colour and have an easily spreadable consistency.
- Wipe the bowl down with your spatula to ensure all of the butter and sugar are mixed in.
- Sift together your flour, baking powder and salt into your other bowl.
- To the butter and sugar mixture, add one egg and a heaped dessert spoonful of flour and beat on a low setting until just combined.
- Repeat another 3 times until all of your eggs have been used.
- Again wipe down the bowl with your spatula to ensure all of the mixture is incorporated.
- Add your vanilla essence, lemon zest and lemon juice and mix until just combined.
- Mix together your sour cream and milk separately.
- Add ¼ of your milk mixture to your batter and mix on a low setting until just combined.
- Add a heaped dessertspoonful of flour and mix in on low until just combined.
- Repeat the above two steps until all of your milk mixture and flour mixture have been mixed in.
- Again wipe down the sides and base of your bowl with your spatula to ensure that everything is totally incorporated.
- Set your mixer to a high setting and give the batter a fast blast for about 10 seconds.
- Tip the mixture into your Bundt tin, or divide equally between your sandwich tins
- Take your blackberries and pop them in the top of the batter, spaced apart and just pushing down slightly so mostly submerged. They will continue to sink as they bake.
- Bang the tin down on your work surface a couple of times to release any large air bubbles in the batter.
- Bake in the centre of your oven for about 55-60 minutes, until a skewer or cocktail stick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Leave to cool in your tin for 10 minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
Lemon and Blackberry Cake Topping
- Take 50 grams (or 12 average-sized blackberries) and squidge them through a sieve.
- Discard the pulp and mix the blackberry juice into your icing sugar.
- Add a teaspoon of lemon juice, or enough to make the icing runny enough to drizzle over the cake.
- Drizzle over your cake, and then decorate with your remaining raspberries.
Supporting Notes
- Ensure your ingredients are at room temperature, this is vital because there are quite a few dairy ingredients in this Lemon and Blackberry cake recipe. If these ingredients are all at room temperature they will easily emulsify and trap air and therefore create a fluffy cake texture.
- Your butter needs to be very soft or even melted when greasing your Bundt tin. This will allow it to get into every crevice. This is important because it ensures that that none of your Lemon and Blackberry Cake sticks to the pan.
- Bake your cake in the lower third of your oven to ensure an even rise. We bake this cake at a relatively low temperature as this prevents an annoying pointy rise, not good for a Bundt in particular!
- Use a small palette knife if you can, or a teaspoon, to drizzle your icing in-between the ridges of your Bundt tin if using the same tin that I used. Gently coax the icing over the sides to leave a delicious little splodge of blackberry icing that trickles down to the base. Yum.