This is a lovely, moist and slightly tangy loaf cake, adapted from a Ruby Tandoh recipe, and you can mix up the fruit as you see fit. You can use pretty much the whole range of summer berries that you might be able to grow at home, forage, or find from local growers: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, black or red currants, blackberries. You can also use frozen berries, but it may add a few minutes to overall baking time. And rhubarb also works particularly well. Our tip is to use of mix of sweeter and more tart fruits, rhubarb and strawberry being our favourite.
Ingredients
75ml olive oil oil
125g full-fat natural yoghurt
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon
105g plain flour
105g wholemeal flour
1½ tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
150g-200g fruit – to your own specification
Method
1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease and line a 1½ lb. loaf tin about 20cm long.
2 In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, yoghurt, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and lemon zest. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Pour the dry ingredients into the yoghurt mixture along with the fruit and fold the lot very gently together. Take care not to mix any more than is necessary: overzealous stirring at this stage could result in a tough cake later.
3 Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 50-55 minutes, or until a small knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack before cutting into fat slices to serve. If the cake seems to be taking longer to cook through in the middle, cover with foil to avoid over-browning.
4 (Optional) Once cooled, use the juice from the zested lemon to make lemon icing – just combine with around 200g icing sugar, and a drop of water if required. Gently spread the icing over the top of the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides.
The cake keeps well in an airtight container for up to a week.