I don't half love the August bank holiday. It's the grown-up equivalent of six glorious weeks of school holidays as a child. Except, obviously, far shorter, with fewer Screwball ice creams, Wagon Wheels and sandy tuna paste Mighty White sandwiches.
With the exception of my husband forgetting to switch off his usual Monday morning work alarm which merrily rang out at 6.20am this morning (we had to have very strong words), today has been a day of doing nothing. I've read the paper, flicked through a few recipe books, drank endless cups of tea. Oh, and baked this. Marvellous.
Biting into the plump, soft crumb of this cake, dotted with juicy, squishy blueberries and topped with the crunch of coconut makes this a rather delicious bank holiday bake.
Blueberry and Coconut Crunch Cake
For the coconut crunch:
75g plain flour
50g chilled butter, cut into cubes
40g brown sugar
40g desiccated coconut
For the cake:
175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon
4 tbsp soured cream
150g (1 punnet) blueberries
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C (fan)/Gas Mark 4. Butter and line a 20cm square cake tin. For the crumble: rub together the butter and flour to form gravel sized pieces. Stir in the sugar and coconut until evenly mixed together and set aside.
2. For the cake: beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, one at a time.
3. Mix together the flour, baking powder and lemon zest and stir half into the butter-sugar mixture with half of the soured cream. Beat well together. Add the remaining flour mixture and soured cream and mix well.
4. Stir through the blueberries and spoon into the prepared tin, leavening the top.
5. Sprinkle over the crumble mixture evenly and bake for 50 minutes until risen and a skewer inserted into the centre of cake comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes then remove from the tin and place on a cooling rack to cool completely
Baker's notes...
- I reckon the blueberries could be easily substituted for other summer fruits such as raspberries or chopped plums
- The recipe for the cake has been adapted from BBC Good Food. Originally, it had a cream cheese icing
I love your addition of coconut crumble instead of cream cheese icing. I'm very much fancying crumble toppings on pretty much all baked goods at the minute but I'm having to be controlled instead so I don't keep eating the same thing. I always enjoy your descriptions too =)
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Laura- the crumble topping is a little different but adds such a satisfying crunch!
Deleteoh good lord that looks divine... love the coconut and berry mix... this is superb!
ReplyDeleteCheers Dom!
DeleteThe best bank holidays are the ones that involve cake and doing nothing, so it sounds like you had a perfect day! This sounds delicious - I love a crunchy crumble topping.
ReplyDeleteIndeed- what else are bank holidays invented for other than to bake and eat an awful lot of cake?!
DeleteWhat did I do on my Bank Holiday? I got wet. Very wet. I should have stayed at home and baked something like this. Sounds lovely. I'm feeling a bit left out, though, because I don't recall ever hearing of a Screwball ice cream before. I think I may have wasted my life.
ReplyDeleteScrewballs were great fun- a plastic cone of artificial vanilla ice cream with an enormous gob stopper at the bottom! Get thee to thee nearest retro ice cream shop!
DeleteI love blueberry cake and that crunchy topping looks great. Glad you had a relaxing bank holiday apart from the early start!
ReplyDeleteWe certainly did thank you Baking Addict!
DeleteThe texture of this looks fantastic. A perfect homely bake for a day of lazy lounging.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jo!
DeleteYum, yum and thrice yum - my kinda cake!
ReplyDeleteAhhh thanks CC!
DeleteYES please Kate - you are truly the queen of these types of crunchy cakes with fruit and I bet the coconut was a great addition too! Karen
ReplyDeleteIt really added a nice tasty flavour to the crunchy topping, I do enjoy baking with coconut (and, erm eating it!)
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