Berry Loaf Cake

Yesterday I hosted a morning tea at my workplace in aid of the Australian Red Cross. It was part of their ‘Big Cake Bake‘ national fundraising event and that meant I had to do some serious baking. One of the new recipes that I came up with was this Berry Loaf Cake.

This was certainly one of the easier cakes that I made for the event. If you have an electric stand mixer then you will find it even easier – I don’t have one (yet!) so I mixed this by hand.

I used frozen mixed berries in the recipe but another good thing about this cake is that you can substitute whatever fruit you like. If you don’t use frozen fruit then you may have to adjust the cooking time accordingly.

Ingredients – makes a standard loaf cake:

• 125g/just over 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 and 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 1/4 cup milk
• approx 200g/7oz frozen mixed berries
• 1 cup icing (powdered) sugar, sifted
• 1-2 teaspoons milk, as required

Method:

• Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan forced/350F.
• Spray a non-stick loaf pan with some cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.
• Add one egg at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Add the vanilla and stir to combine.
• Gradually add the flour and the 1/4 cup of milk, mixing after each addition.
• When you have a smooth batter, gently fold in the berries.
• Spoon into the prepared pan and cook for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
• Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
• To make the icing, mix together the icing sugar and enough milk to get the right consistency so you can drizzle the icing over the top of the cake.
• Allow the icing to set for a few minutes, then serve and enjoy!