I have the lovely Ruth to thank for the idea for this cake. I posted a few days ago asking what on earth I could do with my blackberries, that wasn't jam, crumble or pie (even though I definitely made all those things with them!) and she replied, saying that she was going to try a blackberry yoghurt cake with hers..
This sparked an idea and I immediately thought of Smitten Kitchen's lemon-yoghurt-anything-cake (a favourite of mine, I seriously love her cake recipes, they're always a winner). The recipe she used was adapted from an Ina Garten one, and I've changed up hers enough that I'll write it out here for you (because I'm nice like that).
YOU'LL NEED:
- 193g / 1.5 cups of self-raising flour, plus 2 tbsp flour
- 225g / 1 cup of plain natural yoghurt (about 1.5 of the 150g Yeo Valley Natural Yoghurt pots!)
- 201g / 1 cup of golden caster sugar
- 3 extra-large eggs
- 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
- 125ml / 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
- Some rinsed blackberries (I didn't weigh mine, but I think I had about 250g, roughly, you will probably want more, though)
- A small amount of icing sugar to decorate.
STEPS:
1. Preheat oven to 180C, line a cake tin. I cheat and use these kind of liners by the way, as I hate greasing/cutting baking paper to shape.
2. In a large bowl, combine the oil (do the oil first, it makes the other stuff stick less), yoghurt, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract. Whisk it all together.
3. Measure out your flour in a separate bowl, and gradually add the flour into the wet mixture, whisking until it's all combined. You can do this step in a mixer, I suppose, but I wouldn't after you add the blackberries, as they'll get broken up too much.
4. In the bowl you measured out your flour in, place the blackberries. Using that extra bit of flour, about two tablespoons worth, make sure as many of the blackberries are coated in the flour as possible. This helps them not to sink in the cake.
5. Carefully fold in the flour-coated blackberries to the cake mix. Do this until they're just combined, being careful not to squish them.
6. Pour/scrape into your lined tin and put in the oven.
7. Bake until the top is golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. We found we needed about an hour and five minutes, but I would check periodically to make sure. We also covered with foil after the top started to brown, so it didn't burn.
8. When the cake is cooked, remove and place on a cooling rack. Using a small sieve or tea-strainer, lightly dust with icing sugar.
I'm aware that in the photos it looks like all my fruit has sunk - it really hasn't! The flour thing works, trust me - just for some reason, I distributed the blackberries really badly. Like, they're nearly all in one side of the cake - I don't even know how that happened.. That is why I say you'll probably want more, because they weren't evenly distributed and you know that wouldn't stand in the bake-off.
Anyway, let me know if you try this! It's a really good cake, like a giant muffin, and has a really good texture, very light. I am pretty much just a giant fan of anything that uses yoghurt, sour-cream or buttermilk, I love the texture it gives to the cake.