Lemony Loaves

Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in a class, and all I could think of was lemons. Don't ask me why, but lemon flavoured food was on my mind, not how to protect myself against libel. I had bought a new mini-loaf tin the day before, and I think the combination of the two was too much to handle.

So, once the class was over I sat down with my newest best friend, foodgawker, and searched for lemon based recipes. I found hundreds, too many to trawl through. But, as I had a new toy to try out, I focused on loaves. Then I found this, a recipe for Blackberry & Lemon Cake, from another Irish foodblogger.  It sounded perfect.

I am not the best at inventing my own recipes, but I will tease and tamper with everyone elses. So, with no blackberries around, but an abundance of blueberries, I teased this recipe to fit my ingredients. You could easily use this recipe for cupcakes, or even to make a full loaf. But since I had the new tin, I was going to make mini ones, no matter what!


Lemon & Blueberry Loaves

Ingredients

• 150s unsalted butter
• 150g caster (fine) sugar
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 medium eggs
• 50ml milk.
• 1 lemon
• 100g blueberries

How To:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius.
Grease and flour the mini loaf tin. (Slightly awkward to do, but worth it when they come out of the oven. Unfortunately, I haven't found cases for mini loaf tins just yet! Anyone know if they can be had?)

With the flour, sugar, baking powder and butter, do the same as for the crumble topping. Crumb the butter, flour and baking powder together until it looks like breadcrumbs, then add in the sugar, mixing well.

Put the eggs and milk into a mug/jug and beat with a fork until they're combined.

Make a well in the centre of the crumble type mixture, and add the egg mixture into it. Beat until you get a loose, smooth batter.

Grate the rind of one lemon into the batter, and follow it up with the juice. Beat into the mix.

Tip the washed blueberries into the batter, and using a spoon gently fold them into the mixture. Once they're combined, divide the mixture into your cases. Pop in the oven for 30 minutes, until the cakes are golden brown. Remove from oven and leave to cool in the tin. They should just pop out of the tin once cool (this is where greasing and flouring comes in handy!)   Enjoy!

Options: You could easily serve these with a dollop of cream and they'd be fab. And of course, you can alter the flavours to suit your palette. If a recipe says one lemon, I tend to use more, because I adore the tangy taste of a lemon. But I stuck with one this time out because my lemon was very strong. The entire kitchen smelt like lemon, it was wonderful!!