Summery Blueberry and Almond Loaf Cake

I love making loaf cakes. For some reason they always reliable, moist and easy to cut to have with some afternoon tea. Here I chose to use my basic sponge recipe (see my previous lemon drizzle recipe) but replaced some of the flour with ground almost to really kick up the flavour. The lightness of this helped the blueberries distribute more evenly, giving a really pretty outcome.

Ingredients

• 120g self raising flour
• 100g ground almond
• 220g golden caster sugar
• 220g stork baking margarine (or unsalted butter)
• 1tsp baking powder
• 4 eggs
• 50ml milk
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 150g blueberries
• Honey for a drizzle and some almond flakes for decoration

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 6
2. Cream together the stork/butter and the sugar until very pale and creamy and add the vanilla
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time
4. Mix the flour, baking powder and the ground almond and add one tablespoon at a time (if the mixture has curdled with the eggs, the gradual adding of the flour  should save the batter)
5. Add the blueberries and half the milk, if the mixture seems to thin, add more almond, too thick then add some extra milk. I like a lighter mix as this seems to prevent to the blueberries from sinking.
6. Pour into a greased loaf tin (I drizzled with a line of honey and some almond flakes) and bake for around 40 minutes, checking regularly from that point until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool a little then cool on a wire rack and serve with lashings of cream…and tea, always tea.

x