Blueberry poppy seed cake

The recipe I want to write about today came to me via a friend who saw it online and sent me a link.

Most of what I cook tends to happen as a result of trawling through my cookbook library, perusing one of the many and various food magazines which find their way into this house, or as a result of looking through the kitchen cupboards and fridge to see what ingredients we have to use. What I very seldom do is look online for inspiration.

That’s not to say I don’t spend much of my online time rummaging about culinary-related sites. The enormous amount of foodie newsletters I struggle to keep up with in my inbox are a testament to that. 

It’s just somehow I equate the tactile handling of the cookbook pages, even better if they’re  slightly stained from previous use, to being an integral part of the cooking experience.

The recipe in question is for a blueberry poppy seed cake and I will give the full details as it’s on the New York Times food site and not that easy to get at. There is some free access to the site, but other parts sit behind a paywall for which you need a subscription.

Unlike most US recipes the NYT give measurements both in cups and metric. As cups are their primary measurement, some of the metric conversions look oddly precise. I’ve listed them verbatim here but feel free to round up or down accordingly if you make this.

In the NYT the tablespoon of sugar for sprinkling is listed as turbinado. This was completely new to me, but Google advices it’s what we call demerara in the UK. If you think I’ve got that wrong please feel free to say so.

The recipe lists the almond expect as optional. My advice is if you have some to hand definitely use it. I think it forms an integral part of the cakes flavour.

Ingredients

• 150 gm caster sugar
• 62 gm butter
• 60 ml sunflower oil
• 2 eggs
• 165 gm sour cream
• 1.25 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 0.25tsp baking soda
• 3 tbsp poppy seeds
• 186 gm blueberries
• 1 tbsp demerara sugar

Method

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 4, grease and line the base of either an 8-inch square or 9-inch round cake tin.
• Using a food mixer beat the butter, sugar and oil until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until combined. Next add the sour cream, almond and vanilla extracts and salt and beat again.
• Add the flour, baking powder, soda and poppy seeds, mix at a low speed until combined.
• Fold in approximately 140gm go the blueberries using a spatula.
• Pour the batter into your prepared tin and scatter the remaining blueberries on top. Then sprinkle with the demerara sugar.
• Bake for approximately 40 minutes. When the cake is done a knife inserted into the centre should come out clean.
• Once out of the oven let the cake cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning it onto a wire rack.

This may not sound the most exciting of cakes..but believe me, it’s gorgeous and I can see myself getting hooked on the NYT site. Somehow it manages to be light and sticky at the same time, the addition of poppy seeds adding a light crunch to the texture. It somehow gets even better over the next couple of days, if it lasts that long, as the juice from the blueberries seeps into the cake.

I’ve already made it twice. The first time I went with the square tin option. The second time I went with the round tin, cut the cake through the middle like a sponge, and filled it with blueberry jam and an elderflower and coriander buttercream. The picture with this post is a slice of this one.

Just one word of warning, if you find the picture of this cake on the NYT site it shows blueberries visible on top. I don’t know how they’re doing this. I’ve scattered fruit on top on both occasions, but the cake rises so well in the oven that by the time it comes out they’ve all dropped down into it.