Sour Cream and Blueberry Loaf

You know how it is, you have an urge to bake a cake.

I wanted to do something different, something with blueberries in (and not muffins) as I had a surfeit of them and whilst I do eat them nearly every day, it would be nice to do something else with them, rather than have them with my breakfast.

When in doubt head to Good Housekeeping and see what that throws up. (Not quite the right terminology!)

Well it came up with Sour Cream and Blueberry Loaf with a crumble topping.

Challenge One – I have never made crumble mix before, mainly because my mum is an expert at it.

Challenge Two – Was my cake tin going to leak as it did the other week whilst making the obligatory cake for my boss’ birthday.

Challenge Three – Were the blueberries going to sink

Challenge Four – Was it going to taste ok

Anyway, nothing ventured nothing gained and I was impressed with my first foray of crumble – though made the mistake of whizzing sugar and flour and butter together, rather than adding the sugar at the end. And the butter was not cold and hard enough as I have spreadable stuff to make it easier for creaming (and putting on toast!)

The tin does not leak – As you can see from the picture I used one of those ready-made cake tin linings and it was fine – of course it is not loaf shape but I was testing the tin.

Blueberries moved around sufficiently and burst in the cake.

It tasted scrummy and more than one slice was consumed when I took it to work, where people who never eat fruit had at least two slices. Apparently it would have been nice with cream or custard – there is no pleasing some people!

This is a recipe I will make again I think. You could certainly do it with or without the crumble topping. And next time I will take a picture of it cut – I just did not have chance.

And in case you want to have a go:

For the Loaf:

Ingredients

• 50 ml vegetable oil, plus extra to grease
• 2 medium eggs
• 200 ml sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 200 g self-raising flour, sifted
• 175 g caster sugar
• 125 g blueberries

For the Crumble Topping

Ingredients

• 15 g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
• 40 g plain flour
• 15 g demerara sugar

 Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan) mark 4. Grease and line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin with baking parchment. First make crumble topping: in a medium bowl, rub butter into flour using your fingertips until it clumps together (the clumpier, the better!). Stir in sugar and set aside.
2. In a large jug, mix eggs, sour cream, oil and vanilla until combined. In a separate large bowl, stir together flour and sugar. Add wet mixture to the dry bowl and stir until almost combined (a few lumps are a good thing in this recipe).
3. Carefully fold in most of the blueberries and empty mixture into the prepared tin. Tap the base on a work surface to level, then scatter over the crumble topping and remaining berries.
4. Bake for about 50min or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in tin for 10min then gently ease out of tin. Serve warm or at room temperature.

To see the full details of this recipe then click here which will take you to the Good Housekeeping website.