summer berry burst cake

... The Viking and I were in Dublin once again this past weekend. We're fortunate enough that our work takes us to some lovely places and we get to experience these cities in quite a unique way. We have all the benefits of being tourists but without the crowds and because we're usually working on some strange event in an unusual venue we get to see the insides of buildings that many people don't get the chance to visit and we meet real locals who have an insiders knowledge of the city. Inevitably we are hosted by our lovely clients who know so much about the city, such as where to eat - we had some amazingly good food... and of course where to drink... there was a lot of drinking this weekend. It even got to the point on Sunday night when I actually had to excuse myself at 11:30pm to go to bed... i think I must be getting old...

summer berry burst cake
this is one of those cakes where you know you want to bake something sweet but you're not surfier you can endure the faff of baking something elegant with frosting and layers but you still want that baked buttery, fruity taste... it's so simple and will take any selection of fruits. This one is packed so full of fruits that it's so incurably moist but I love my cakes like this - all puddingy and gooey... I had raspberries, blueberries and blackberries in the fridge and I threw in a handful of each and i've tried to be more precise with the measurements below but life is one big experiments so don't sue me if your try this and it comes out too juicy!

i've used a classic 'weigh-the-eggs' baking method here but you could use your favourite classic sponge recipe and then add the fruits at the last stage... the weigh-the-eggs method is very simple and as the name suggests you start the process by weighing the three eggs in their shells and whatever this weight is, you then measure out the same weight of butter, sugar and flour. I have given you the ingredients list and weights below but of course your three eggs will weigh slightly differently to mine so best use your weights not mine...

3 large free-range eggs
230g butter
230g sugar
230g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
50g raspberries
50g blackberries
50g blueberries
a little milk to slacken

grease and line your cake tin... I used a 2cm square tin... and pre-heat your oven to 170C

sieve the baking powder into the flour

in a large bowl, use an electric whisk to cream the sugar and butter for at least 4 minutes until the mixture is pale and fluffy then add 1 egg and whisk in followed by a third of the flour mixture, then whisk in the next egg followed by another third of the flour and then the final egg is whisked in followed by the remaining flour.

next whisk in the vanilla and 2 or 3 tablespoons of milk

then, tip in your fruit and plunge the electric whisk into the batter and let it spin a few times... it will pulverise the fruit and mix it in at the same time

pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30 minutes or until golden and risen and a skewer inserted comes out clean - set aside to cool on a wire rack.

you can decorate it will all kinds of icing but quite frankly I love it like this, nice and plain and juicy with its own fruit!

i'm linking this cake to the Great British Blackberry Round-Up which is a celebration of the humble blackberry hosted by Janice from Farmergirl Kitchen and Karen from Lavender and Lovage... it's a great place to share and be inspired by lots of wonderful blackberry recipes...

eat and of course, enjoy!