Blackberry and apple cake

Everything is open now, and time has started to fly. We've had a beautiful patch of warm, sunny weather lately, but it feels like the prelude to autumn nonetheless - a touch of chill underneath. We made a couple of blackberry picking forays while still on holidays a few weeks ago... I realized now the season was drawing to a close already... I dreamed of blackberry and apple cake, and this one fitted my dream perfectly. So I went blackberry picking once more. 

 

I joined a new bee group, and there is a patch of brambles around the beehives, and you need a key to access where they are, so it's a good picking spot. The key wasn't where it was supposed to be, so I had to sneak in the back way - and the brambles were almost done. But I picked half a box. Turned out when I got back, I'd picked almost exactly the right amount for the cake. I'd also picked up the apples from a box outside someone's house.

 

for the cake: 

2 small dessert apples 

half a lemon 

150 g blackberries 

150 g butter 

150 g golden caster sugar (or half caster, half muscovado) 

3 eggs 

85 g plain flour 

1.5 tsp baking powder 

100 g ground hazelnuts (whole ones, ground)

 

for the crumble: 

50 g butter

50 g plain flour 

60 g golden caster sugar 

2 heaped tbsp rolled oats 

pinch of cinnamon (optional)

 

Heat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a big loaf tin. 

 

Peel and quarter the apples, core them and then slice them thinly. Squeeze lemon juice over them, and then mix with the blackberries. 

 

Beat the sugar and butter together until light and smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. 

 

Put the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl, add the ground hazelnuts, and mix well with a fork. Stir in to the mixture in two or three lots. 

 

Transfer the batter to the tin, smooth, and scatter the apple and blackberry mixture over the top, pushing some of the fruit lightly down into it. 

 

Make the crumble by rubbing the flour and butter together, and stirring in the sugar, oats and cinnamon. 

 

Scatter the crumble on top of the cake and bake for about an hour until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out moist but fairly clean.  Check after 30 and 45 min, and if the crumble browns on top too quickly, then cover with a piece of foil while the cake finishes cooking through.

 

Remove from the oven when done and let cool completely on a baking rack before removing from the tin and taking off the paper.

Mine took about 65 min to bake. The fruit dripped a little bit over the edge (my loaf tin was rather full) - might be worth lining the oven shelf underneath to catch sugary drips.

 

It was really really good though. The hazelnuts in the base are genius - they add so much depth of flavour and texture, and go really well with the blackberry and apple. I made a similar cake not long ago without the blackberries and hazelnuts - this one is superior (and didn't overflow my loaf tin quite as much).

Blackberry, oat and yoghurt muffins

S made grand plans to go on a foraging mission on Saturday. We biked through Nokken and around the Amagerfælled, with our eyes out for tempting stands of sanddorn (aka sea buckthorn aka havtorn ahhhh living in three languages is a little crazy sometimes, I just hope I get so I can really use the other two for stuff other than berries before too long!) or blackberries (aka brambles aka brombær aka brombeere)... We were also looking out for mushrooms but not so much luck this time - although we did find our first Danish edibles (oysters and chanterelles) a couple of weeks ago in the Danish Switzerland. We gathered some sanddorn near Nokken - more on that here. We hit up a couple of blackberry patches in the Amagerfælled (and they hit back...). We filled all our containers... then biked on to Amagerstrand for a swim and a Lidl picnic (really good gazpacho and S's fave pretzels).

Quite a few of the blackberries have gotten mixed into yoghurt, with or without muesli, and eaten just like that. I decided to freeze the remainder before they got too soggy, to keep them for future muesli (spread them on baking paper / baking tray in a single layer to freeze before putting in a bag or container so they don't stick together). But first, 5 oz got made into these muffins.

I used to make these muffins a lot. They were from a muffin recipe book my uni flatmate S had when we lived together, and I made them loads and wrote the recipes down when we moved out. This is a particular favourite - they work well with blueberries or raisins, but I reckon the blackberry-yoghurt-cinnamon-oat combination is a real winner.

(makes 12 medium sized muffins)

3 oz / 75 g oats
8 fl oz plain yoghurt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
7 oz / 175 g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4-5 oz / 100-125 g brown sugar
1 egg
3-4 fl oz milk
3 fl oz vegetable oil
5 oz / 125 g blackberries (or other berries, or 3 oz / 75 g raisins)

Heat oven to 200C / 170C fan / 400F. Grease and/or line a muffin tin. Mix oats, yoghurt and bicarb and let stand for a minute. Mix the remaining dry ingredients in a large bowl with a fork. Add the remaining wet ingredients to the yoghurt mixture, whisk and then tip into the dry stuff. Mix until just combined, adding berries in the final few strokes. Then dollop into prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 min, until well risen and golden. Let cool ten min before moving to a cooling rack.

Little chocolate-berry birthday cakes (gluten-free and vegan)

Little chocolate cake with blackberry jam centre and chocolate icing

It was Alvin's birthday on Monday.  Coincidentally, I had asked him when it was about a week before the day.  We had an abortive attempt to organize something for his actual birthday (turned out he already had plans), but ended up putting plans on hold til the next workday... which was today.  All pretty vague, but I decided to make some gluten-free cakes (he eats GF).

Chocolate cake:

Dry:
1/2 cup GF oat flour
1/3 cup rice flour
1/3 cup glutinous rice flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp custard powder
2 tbsp ground chia seed
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Wet:
1/2 cup fake milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Heat oven to 350F.  Mix dry ingredients well together with a fork.  Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl.  Add wet to dry and mix til combined.  Prepare a muffin tin and put the mixture into muffin cups (this makes 12).  Put in oven and bake 25-30min / til a skewer comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely before icing.


Chocolate icing:
(recipe from here)

(makes 2 cups - a half quantity is plenty for icing 12 little cakes).

1 pack (12.3oz box eg Mori-Nu) firm silken tofu
1 tbsp canola oil
1/3 tsp salt
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
6 oz chocolate, melted
1-3 tbsp fake milk, for thinning, if required

Put tofu, oil and salt in blender and puree til smooth.  Add sugar, cocoa and vanilla and blend til smooth.  Add melted chocolate and blend til smooth.  Refrigerate until needed (1 hour to a day).  If it is too thick to spread easily add some fake milk until you get a good consistency.



Decoration:
~1/4 cup blackberry jam
6 glace cherries

Once the cakes are cooled and the icing chilled, assemble as follows:  cut a small piece out of the middle of each cake and put in ~ 1tsp blackberry jam.  Replace the cut-out piece as a lid.  Take 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp of frosting and spread out on top, trying to keep it neat and cover the whole surface.  Cut glace cherries in half and put half a cherry on top in the middle of each cake.


When I took the cakes out of the oven I thought it was a bit of a disaster - they really sank, and seemed to be undercooked although they'd been in for about 45min.  The batter was too wet I think (this is what happens when I make it up as I go along) - I've edited the quantities above a little to try and address this, although I might also consider taking out the applesauce and using 3/4 cup fake milk to make a simpler recipe.  But the recipe is definitely a work in progress.  I made the oat flour in my spice grinder, and that worked well.  The icing was good - you can't go wrong with melted chocolate - could simplify it a bit I think: maybe just chocolate, tofu, vanilla and sugar would be worth trying.

Despite the initial mini-cake-disaster, once the cakes were filled and iced they looked pretty good (somewhat less so by the time I'd biked across town with them, but they more-or-less survived).  And they went down very well!  I took candles, and we had cake and candles and a spontaneous singing of 'Happy Birthday' at the garden.  I made some black bean brownies as back-up, and all of both kinds of cake disappeared, which is usually a good sign.  Non-vegan / GF people didn't guess the cakes were lacking (the tofu in the icing was a particular success), and at least one GF girl was happily surprised that she could eat cake!  There was a good turn-out today - even Seb came along - and it was a good day.

Soy+linseed bread / blackberry jam / summer fruit compote

Another exciting-looking bread recipe from the Guardian.  And several bags of blackberries in the freezer since last fall, needing to be used.

Soy and linseed bread

50g rolled oats
50g golden linseed
275ml lukewarm soya milk
1½ tsp easy-blend yeast
325g strong white bread flour
50g wholemeal or rye flour (used wholemeal)
1½ tsp fine salt
Olive or sunflower oil


Put the rolled oats and linseed in a large mixing bowl, stir in 100ml of boiling water and leave for 30 minutes to soften. Add the warm soya milk and yeast, and mix well. Measure out the two flours and the salt, add these to the soya mixture, then stir everything together into a big, soft and sticky dough. Cover and leave for 10 minutes, then knead on a lightly oiled worktop for about 10 seconds. Cover and leave for another 10 minutes. Repeat this knead-and-rest sequence twice more at 10-minute intervals, then leave covered for 30 minutes.

Brush the inside of a deep, 19cm long loaf tin or similar with oil. Roll out the dough into a rectangle about 2cm thick, roll it up tightly and squash it seam-side down into the tin. Cover with a cloth and leave somewhere warmish for about an hour and a half, until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 220C (190C fan-assisted)/425F/gas mark 8, slash the top and bake for about 45 minutes. Take the tin out of the oven, remove the loaf from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.


Blackberry jam

3lb blackberries
75ml water
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cinnamon stick
3lb sugar



Wash and pick over the blackberries (can freeze at this point if desired).  Put the fruit in a big pan.  Add the water, lemon juice and cinnamon stick and boil until the fruit is softened and reduced (~30min at a good fast bubble).  Add the sugar and bring to a rolling boil.  Meanwhile, put a saucer in the freezer.  Wash jars in hot soapy water, rinse well and put in a low oven to dry.  When you think it's nearing set point put a dribble (~1/2 tsp) of hot jam onto the cold saucer and put it back in the freezer for 10min.  Take it out and push your finger through the jam puddle.  If it wrinkles up the jam has reached set point.  When this happens switch off the heat and let the jam stop bubbling / cool for 10 min or so.  Then fill the jars.  Be careful not to get hot jam on your hands.  Put the lids on right away and leave to cool.  When cool, wipe off the jars and label.

Notes:  The cinnamon was an experiment in making more interesting flavoured jam.  Will have to see if can taste it.  The lemon juice is not necessary if your berries are reasonably sour, but helps with set so I put some in.  It becomes a point of judgement how much lemon juice (if any) to add to achieve a good set, and I don't always get it right.  Based on recipes from my AFRC Institute of Food Research preserving book from Grandma.



Summer Fruit Compote

handful of each (all frozen): raspberries, black raspberries, mulberries, blackberries.  couple of handfuls blueberries, 150ml tub stewed unsweetened sour cherries.  sprinking (~25g?) sugar, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 bay leaf, few drops vanilla essence...

Put all in a pan and heat until all the fruit is defrosted.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Or, Delia's recipe:

3 peaches
6 apricots
6 large plums
8 oz blueberries
6 oz raspberries
2 oz sugar

Slice peaches, apricots and plums and put in an oven dish with the blueberries.  Add sugar.  Bake uncovered for 25-30min at 180C, until tender.  Remove from the oven and stir in the raspberries.  Check the sweetness and add more sugar if it needs it.


The bread was good again - the crustiest one yet, and tasty but with relatively simple ingredients.  S said it was his favourite for those reasons.

The jam turned out well.  The blackberries held up well, and the set was pretty much perfect.  Haven't decided yet whether I can taste the cinnamon or not.  Made 5 and a bit jars.

Compote was good.  Think it is nice to have some bigger, juicier fruit in with the berries though.