Tuesday 23 June 2009

Summer Berry Yoghurt Cake

Last weekend we went to Hampstead for lunch. At least, we set out for Hampstead, but after we'd spent an hour on the M1 and had travelled 1/4 mile, we aborted the mission and came (very slowly) home. And thus the beautiful Summer Berry Yoghurt Cake that I had nursed on my lap for the entire tedious journey only ended up with an appreciative audience of two. Which is a crying shame, because it was a bloody good cake.

I spotted it on Farida's Azerbaijani Cookbook, and she had adapted it from a recipe on the wonderful Elle's New England Kitchen.

And now this is my version.

Summer Berry Yoghurt Cake

2 cups plain flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter (I only had salted in, so I didn't add any extra salt to the cake)
1 cup raw caster sugar
3 eggs (Farida's recipe called for 4, but I only had 3 and the texture was just fine)
Splash of vanilla extract (adds a little flavour, but it is mostly because I adore the scent of baking vanilla)
1 cup strained Greek yoghurt
1 cup frozen mixed berries (blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in this mix)
Finely grated zest of a lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup demerera sugar

Cream the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy with a wooden spoon, add the eggs one at a time, beating each one in well. Add the yoghurt and vanilla and mix well.

Add the sifted flour and baking powder and mix until just blended. Fold in the berries and lemon zest (I over-mixed at this point - ignoring common sense - and the cake went an odd purple colour).

Pour into a greased 21cm x 11cm loaf tin and bake in a 180C oven for 70 minutes or until the cake is golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Mix the lemon juice and demerera sugar, and pour evenly over the hot cake. Allow to cool in the tin before turning onto a wire rack.

Keeps really well - I had the last slice today and it was still moist and delicious 8 days after baking.

11 comments:

Bettina Douglas said...

That looks lovely.
For how long do you drain the yoghurt?

kat said...

beautiful cake. sounds like your highways are as bad as ours right now

Alicia Foodycat said...

Mother - I bought a tub of strained yoghurt, but if I were doing it myself it'd be an hour or two.

Kat - it was dismal. There was an accident just up ahead of us and a 4-lane motorway came to a halt.

HH said...

Looks and sounds wonderful FC, I shall be making this one I, thanks!

Esi said...

I love simple cakes like this. Especially when they highlight summer produce.

Alicia Foodycat said...

HH - I think this would definitely appeal to you!

Esi - there is something very nice about a plain cake, isn't there?

hungryandfrozen said...

Interesting that you strain the yoghurt - does it make it extra thick? This does sound beautiful, I like that it has changed hands across blogs - must mean that it's a good recipe :D

the twins said...

that looks so good, thanks for the recipe! what is demarra sugar?

Deb in Hawaii said...

What a wonderful summery cake. I love the fact it has yogurt in it. I wouldn't have minded having less people to have to share it with. ;-)

Alicia Foodycat said...

Laura - yup, it does make it thicker. You can use any yoghurt though!

Twins - hi, thanks for stopping by! Glad you like it.

Deb - Like the yoghurt in your icecream! Yum!

Peter M said...

Yogurt does make things all good & moist and what could be better than summer berries? A cake, of course!

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