Blueberry, Raspberry and Lemon Butter Cake

Even though summer hasn't arrived here yet (I am obviously being optimistic here, that summer will eventually arrive and the sun currently hiding behind the omnipresent grey clouds will once again show its face) the summer fruit is making its way into the supermarkets and I am once again tempted to buy it to bake with. I love baking cakes with fresh fruit in them - it's such a lovely combination of soft sweet cake punctuated by zesty fruity bites.

For this cake I decided to use a recipe I have used before and found to be an excellent partner for juicy fruits. You can find the original Apricot Butter Cake on the BBC Good Food website. I didn't want to make a 9" round cake and having done the calculations reckoned that 2/3 of the mixture would be right for an 8"(20cm) round cake. I followed the instructions as given on the website, but used the ingredients listed below.

Blueberry, Raspberry and Lemon Butter Cake
Ingredients
100ml milk
zest 1 lemon
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
235g self raising flour
135g butter, melted
approximately 60-70g each blueberries and raspberries

Method

I used the method as given in the original recipe but folded through lemon zest instead of adding vanilla and then at the end I folded through my washed and dried soft fruit. I think I would add a little more fruit next time though, just because it was so lovely to bite into fruit!

I decided, having prepared my 8" tin (which was admittedly only shallow rather than deep) that all of the mixture wouldn't fit and at the last minute, used some of the mixture to make 4 cupcakes too. This is where having a half size (i.e. only 6 holes rather than 12) muffin tin comes in very useful, as it will sit alongside an 8" round tin in my oven quite happily.

I can't quite remember how long the cake took to bake, but probably around 45 minutes, with the cupcakes taking about 30 I guess.

I decided to leave the cake undecorated, but cupcakes always look so sad when undecorated so I quickly made up some glace icing (icing sugar plus water or lemon juice) and poured it over and then added a decorative blueberry to finish them off!

I loved this cake - the moist buttery sponge is set off perfectly by the juicy bursting blueberries and raspberries and the lemon zest adds interest to the body of the cake itself. You could easily use vanilla if you're not keen on lemon though. Both the cupcakes with their icing and the cake alone worked well.

I am entering this into this month's Teatime Treats challenge, where Karen of Lavender and Lovage has set the challenge as berries. Her cohost is Kate of What Kate Baked.