Yotam Ottolenghi did it again! This cake has everything: tangy lemon, sweet, moist and dense cake and refreshing blueberries oozing their juices into the lemon icing. Wow, what a weekend treat! We’ll be nibbling at it the rest of the week as well.
With all things baking, it’s pretty much an exact science, so when the recipe called for a baking tin of 20×11 cm and I only had one which was 30×11 cm I knew I had to get creative to make it happen.
With alumimium foil I made a little wall to shorten the baking tray and I sealed the edges with baking paper (see image). Tip: by greasing all sides, also the aluminium foil, the baking paper sticks to the surfaces. In the cavity of the part you don’t use scrunch up an extra ball of alumimium foil so the wall stays in place when the cake expands.
Recipe inspired by Ottolenghi, from his cookbook Simple.
Almond, Lemon & Blueberry Cake
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading...Ingredients
- Cake
- 150 g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
- 190 g caster sugar
- 2 lemons, zest of both lemons, 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 90 g self raising flour
- 110 g almond flour
- Pinch of salt
- 200 g blueberries, divided
- Icing
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 70 g icing sugar
Instructions
Mixing the batter
Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a 11 x 20 cm baking tin (see notes).
Add the softened butter, 1 tbsp lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar to a bowl and mix thoroughly until light and fluffy, ± 4-5 minutes. I mixed by hand but a blender will work as well, start at high speed and when light and fluffy turn down to medium size.
Slowly add in the whisked egg, ± a tablespoon at a time. It will start to curdle a bit but don't worry, it will be fine in the end.
Add the salt and half of the self raising flour, mix through and when mixed add the rest of the flour.
Add the almond flour, also in 2 portions.
when mixed use a spatula to fold in 150 g of the blueberries.
Pour the mixture in the prepared baking tin.
Baking
Bake the cake for 15 minutes.
Divide the rest of the blueberries over the top and bake for another 15 minutes until slightly starting to brown but still wobbly.
Cover the baking tin loosely with almuminium foil and bake for another 25 - 30 minutes.
After 25 minutes check if it's done by pricking in w wooden skewer, if it comes out clean, it's done, if not, bake for a few more minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin for 10 minutes.
Remove from the baking tin and let cool completely on a cooling rack.
Finishing
Make the lemon icing my mixing 1 tbsp of lemon juice with 70 g of icing sugar.
When the cake is completely cooled, drizzle it over the top.
The icing will ooze into the baked blueberries to make pretty pink icing here and there.
I like it best when the icing has hardened a bit, so let it set for a while, but I totally understand if you can't wait!
Notes
I would really recommend using a correct size baking tin, but if you don't have one, get creative. I had an 11 x 30 cm tin instead of an 11 x 20 cm tin. With alumimium foil I made a little wall to shorten the baking tray and I sealed the edges with baking paper (see image). Tip: by greasing all sides, also the aluminium foil, the baking paper sticks to the surfaces. In the cavity of the part you don’t use scrunch up an extra ball of alumimium foil so the wall stays in place when the cake expands.
