Lemon and Blueberry Yoghurt cake

 Lemon and blueberry yoghurt loaf cake can be the sweet and tangy ending to a meal, served warm with yoghurt, blueberries and a drizzle of honey, or served as the sweet component of a morning or afternoon tea with lemon icing or a dusting of icing sugar. It's versatile and delicious.

This cake is a keeper, and I had been wanting to bake it while the blueberries in Australia are still in season. I picked the lemon from our tree a bit earlier than I should have because of the windy conditions due to the imminence of Cyclone Kirrilly, but because the fruit skin hadn't turned golden I didn't use the zest. However the lemon was juicy enough to dial up the citrus flavour. I didn't miss the zest, but I would still use it next time if I have it. Sometimes we need a quick uncomplicated cake in our baking repertoire that we can mix up quickly. This one can be mixed up in one bowl with a spoon,  there's no need for the electric mixer. Mr. HRK was raving about this cake when we first enjoyed it with a cuppa.

The cake was still a little bit too warm when I iced it, and sliced it, but we needed cake. It was very windy and rainy outside with the cyclone hovering to the North of us, the perfect weather for cake. Know what I mean? The cake was absolutely delicious with a soft silky crumb when warm, but still quite perfect  the following day.

Ingredients:

Serves 10.

Prep time 10minutes

COOK 55 minutes

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 cup caster sugar

1 lemon, juiced and zested

2 tsp vanilla-bean paste

3 large free range eggs. lightly beaten

1  cup thick Greek Natural Yoghurt for the cake mixture, 1 cup to serve if using

1 3/4 cups self-raising flour (see note below.)

250 g punnet blueberries, 125 g for the cake mixture, 125 g for serving

2 tbs pure honey, for serving

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160 deg. C fan-forced/ 180 deg. C normal

Select an 8x29 cm (or closest available) loaf pan. Line it with baking paper. Allow an overhang of paper along the long sides for the handles. You will need these to lift the cake out.

In a large bowl combine the sugar, oil, juice, zest, vanilla, eggs and 1 cup of yoghurt in a bowl. Add the flour and stir to combine.

Gently fold in 125 g of the blueberries.

Pour the mixture into your prepared pan and smooth the surface.

Bake for 55 minutes, but check that the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake. When it comes out clean the cake is cooked. Mine needed an extra 10 minutes even though it appeared on the surface as if it was cooked. Just saying.

Remove from the oven.

Leave the cake to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes.

Lift out from the tin onto the wire rack to cool.

How you serve the cake is up to you. I couldn't resist icing mine. A good lemon flavoured icing is such a treat.

Lemon Icing:

My icing is a simple concoction of 3 cups of icing sugar, 1 melted tablespoon of butter,  and the juice of a lemon. Mix the butter into the icing sugar first, then add the lemon juice. All things being dependant on the sugar and the size of the lemon etc, you might need to add a little more lemon juice or a little more icing sugar, until you have the right consistency. Just keep adding icing sugar until you are happy with it. With this type of icing, it doesn't take much liquid to moisten the icing sugar for a cake so you can add the lemon juice gradually. When the cake is cut, this photo below shows what happens to the icing if the cake is still a little warm. We didn't mind though, I wasn't entering a cake competition with this one, and it was so soothing to eat.

If you don't want to ice your cake, serve with just a light dusting of icing sugar or alternatively, serve with yoghurt and blueberries and a drizzle of honey for dessert.

Cook's notes:

• I rarely buy SR flour anymore. For this recipe use 1 3/4 cups plain flour and 3 tsp baking powder instead. This is what I did and the cake rose beautifully
• I was wondering if the Extra Virgin Olive Oil would bring too strong a flavour to this cake. It didn't, but you could use a lighter flavoured olive oil if you wish. This cake keeps well because of the oil.
• Lightly dusting the blueberries with flour before adding them to the cake batter can ensure they distribute evenly throughout the mixture.

This recipe was originally in a Woolworths supermarket catalog, and I have made it mine with a few simple changes. I didn't buy the product names they were promoting, and served it up differently by icing it. Beware of supermarket catalogs, whilst some of the recipes are really good, and have a strong following online as well, they are very heavily promoting expensive products in the shop. Often the cheaper brands work just as well and make a big difference to the shopping budget.

The downside of this whole exercise is that the photos were taken in a rush, and don't really do the cake justice. I'm learning that I probably need to make two cakes in this house, one for blogging purposes and photographs, and one for eating and sharing with the neighbours and friends, lol. This sounds a bit extreme though doesn't it? The main thing though is that we were thrilled with how the cake tasted.

Happy baking.

Warm wishes,

Pauline