Read on for my recipe for summer berry cake
The sun is shining here in Ayrshire, the daisies are waving in the warm breeze, it’s summer! I’ve got some friends popping round this evening and we’ll be eating outside. Oh I love to eat outdoors. Here in Scotland it is such a treat and makes me think of holidays where you take dining outdoors totally for granted.
I’m not risking a BBQ this evening, there are two reasons for that, I haven’t cleaned the damn thing and you just never know with the weather here. So it will be roast chicken with salad and a nice pudding. My summer berry cake.
Keep it simple
This summer berry cake is totally simple. It is basically just a normal vanilla sponge cake with masses of summer berries and other goodies to ramp things up a bit and take it from ordinary tea time fare to extra special pudding.
Flavours
It’s all about flavour here. As I’ve said this is a standard vanilla sponge but I have thrown lemon into the mix too. There is lemon zest in the cake itself and lemon curd in the cream cheese topping. Add in the strawberry jam as the filling and you are packing in those fabulous summer flavours before you even think of throwing in the summer berries themselves.
Instead of using standard round sandwich cake tims I have gone for a loaf tin here to make an oblong cake. A wee bit different and I really do think it works well with the berries being able to set them out in rows on top.
So enjoy this delightful summer berry cake either with a cup of tea in the afternoon, with some bubbles and friends in the sunshine or as a pud in the evening.
Karon x
Summer Cake
Ingredients
- 125 g/4oz unsalted butter
- 125 g/4oz caster sugar
- 1 large egg
- 125 g/4oz self raising flour
- 65 ml milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- grated zest of a lemon
- Filling
- 2 tablespoons strawberry jam
- sliced strawberries
- TOPPING
- 2 tablespoons Cream cheese
- 1 tablespoon lemon curd
- Icing sugar
- Strawberries and blueberries to decorate
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 I used a 2lb loaf tin but you could just use a 23cm/9" round cake tin if you wanted a different shape. Grease and line the tin.
- Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. In a separate bowl whisk the egg with the milk and vanilla extract.
- Sift the flour. Now add the liquid and the flour a little at a time (one dry then one liquid) to the buttery sugar, until everything is well combined. Add the lemon zest and stir in.
- Spoon mixture into baking tin and pop into the oven for approximately 40 minutes or until it springs back when gently prodded in the centre.
- Let it cool on a wire rack before removing from tin.
- Slice in half horizontally.
- Spread the strawberry jam over the base and then add sliced strawberries.
- Place the other half cake on top.
- In a large bowl start with the lemon curd and cream cheese and keep adding icing sugar and stirring it in until you get a good thick paste. Too runny and it will slide right off the cake, you want it to hold its shape but still have a bit of that drip for the sides.
- Spread this on top of cake and then add a row of sliced strawberries down the centre with blueberries down either side.
- Slice and enjoy.
PIN ME FOR LATER
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