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So, all you foodies out there know about Tessa Kiros right? Yes? Well, then you know that she writes the most beautiful cookbooks, every time I open them up I want to dive in and live inside them where I could eat well and be happy for all the rest of my days. This cake is from her book Apples for Jam...you probably know it, it has little red shoes on the front of it! Tell me, who could possibly resist a cookbook with shoes on the front! Well I couldn't anyway. The book is beautifully laid out featuring recipes from all the colours of the rainbow interjected with lovely little stories. A book written for her children, and to help parents cook with children, it is grown up but features such simple heartwarming food that it really is a triumph for all ages. With the dirty thirty looming very soon, I am decidedly not a child (despite acting like one more often than I would like to admit), and I have no children (yet...hi mom!) but I love this book all the same. Every time I cook something from one of her books I am reminded that I should be cooking from them more often...Tessa if you're out there you are one of my food heroines!
I made a few adjustments to the recipe adding a bit of lemon juice and yogurt to bring even more lightness to it, and I baked it in a smaller pan than what was called for as I really wanted thick slices you had to really stretch to get your mouth around. I think you could probably even do this cake in several shapes and sizes, its so easily adaptable I might try it as a bundt cake next time. Tessa also mentions you could use any type of berry here as well, I think raspberries or blackberries would work beautifully but whatever you do make sure you are using fresh and not frozen as the latter would make this disappointingly mushy.
Blueberry Lemon Buttermilk Cake
- 2 1/2 cups / 315g plain flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 very scant cup / 90g of caster (superfine) sugar
- pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup / 250ml buttermilk (or 3/4 cup buttermilk and 1/4 cup yogurt as I did)
- 10 Tablespoons / 60g butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 150g / approx 1 cup blueberries
- 2 Tablespoons demerara sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Preheat the oven to 400f / 200c. Grease the pan. The recipe calls for a 12 x 8 inch (30cm x 20cm) pan but I used an 8 x 8 inch (20cm x 20cm) square pan, and turned the oven down to 375f / 190c as the smaller pan created a thicker cake that I did not want to go too brown on top.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder, and add the sugar and nutmeg. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the eggs until fluffy. Add the buttermilk, butter, lemon zest, and lemon juice and mix well until incorporated. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. You know the mixing rules...
Spread the mixture into the pan and tumble the blueberries over the top and sprinkle with the demerara sugar. I used less than what was called for in the recipe and I did regret it a bit as it would've given a nice crunchy dimension to the texture, so next time I would use the full whack. Bake for 25 minutes until the top is just golden and a skewer comes out clean. I let mine bake a little bit longer, taking about 30 minutes in my oven.
Makes 12 - 15 regular sized square, or 9 "i didn't know my mouth could open this wide" squares.








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