Blueberry Loaf with Lemon and Mint Syrup

A few days ago, my mum's lovely friend M. invited me around for dinner. She cooked us a truly yummy meal and then offered to pick me a punch of herbs from her garden to take home. She came back with a gorgeous bouquet of mint, chives, parsley and coriander. They're such a beautiful deep green.

To thank her for her generosity both that night and in the past few years while I've been here, I decided to make her a cake. I had bought a box of fresh blueberries to use in my Swiss Roll, but hadn't used them, so they formed my key ingredient. I also had a lemon left over from the lemon curd, so I had a look at foodgawker and came up with this recipe. I decided a loaf would be easiest to wrap and transport.

To include some of her wonderful herbs I steeped mint in a simple lemon syrup. I'm so glad I tried this out on a whim - it tasted fantastic. I would have happily sat down and consumed the whole bowl.

As my loaf tin is slightly smaller than the recommended 9" by 5" and I wanted the top to look attractive and not spill everywhere, I made four extra small cakes out of the mixture. Turns out there would have been space, but this meant I got to try some...

I was really pleased with this loaf recipe - it's a beautifully light sponge and very moist and tender. I'll definitely be using it again. The syrup finished it off with a lovely and slightly unusual note - a simple lemon juice and sugar crust would also be yummy if you don't have the mint.

Blueberry Loaf with Lemon and Mint Syrup
(loaf recipe from Italian Dish, here)

For the loaf:
113g butter
225g caster sugar
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
2 eggs
120 ml milk
zest of a lemon
1 packet fresh blueberries (about 250g)

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F. Line a loaf tin with paper or grease well and flour. Cream the room temp butter and sugar together until very light and fluffy (five minutes or so). Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in another bowl. Add an egg and beat in on low, then add the other egg. You may need to add a tsp of the flour mixture in between. Alternately add a few tablespoons of flour and a splash of milk until fully combined. Stir in the blueberries and zest then spoon into the loaf tin.  Bake for about 1 hr, testing with a skewer or similar. Leave to cool for five minutes before applying syrup (see below).

For the syrup:
juice of 1 big lemon
50g caster sugar
3-4 fresh mint leaves

Mix all the ingredients together in a small pan or a microwaveable jug - I just blasted mine for a few minutes, stirring regularly till the sugar had dissolved. You could also do this in a small saucepan. Leave to cool and steep while the loaf cooks. When it has cooled for five minutes, start brushing the syrup over the top with a pastry brush. Use a small knife or a skewer to make some incisions on the top at regular intervals and fill with syrup. Keep brushing over and letting it sink in until it is all absorbed. Leave to cool fully then slice.

Lemon Curd and Blueberry Swiss Roll

This is my very first swiss roll. I can't say it went perfectly (see massive fissure) or I don't have several things to improve for next time, but I'm a little infatuated with the process. The cake, rolled and wrapped in a tea towel, was warm and almost alive to the touch as it cooled.  I wanted to start again the moment I finished this one.

Unfortunately, time is becoming a bit of a precious commodity. I went down to Summer Eights this weekend and spent far too much of the day thinking of the work I had sitting at home and the blog post I wanted to write (Nutella has a way of talking over my mind like that). It was a different day to last year in many ways - most obviously in that I wasn't rowing and it was dark, gloomy and rainy.

As this term comes into the last few weeks, life is getting a little bit more complicated every day. Not only do we have the impending doom of our portfolio exam that starts on Tuesday, but we're having a lot of meetings and emails about next year. It's all very exciting, but the work is piling up. Even my excitement about cooking and blogging seems to take up more time and energy as every day passes.  It really feels like I'm on a treadmill and the speed is slowly but surely being turned up.

I have so many things I want to do this summer other than work and reading - and that's before I've had some time to just be. To just walk in the sunshine, laze with some unsuitable literature, bake up a storm.



Time seems to slip by so quickly. I turn 21 next Thursday. I can't believe it. Am I really a proper adult?

This term - this year - has gone by in a flash. It feels like I will graduate before I know it - it's less than a year now. The finalists finished last week. Then I will be free to pursue my dreams - a simultaneously terrifying and unbelievably exciting thought.

A few weeks ago I bought myself a swiss roll/roulade tin. I've always wanted one and finally I gave in and bought a beautiful Alan Silverwood one. The first recipe to grace its shiny silver shape came from Delicious. magazine.

To fill the plain swiss roll sponge, I decided to go for lemon curd and a sticky blueberry compote I made from frozen berries. I have a bit of a love affair with fresh homemade lemon curd (my first post was even about a Lemon Curd Layer Cake...) and it seemed like a lovely spring/summer filling. I actually bought some fresh blueberries for this (more on those soon...) but ended up deciding to go for a stickier, darker, frozen berry mixture. It just seemed right. The taste/texture combination worked really well (and looked very pretty). The cake was a little dry and overpowering, despite being sticky - maybe it just needed more filling, or to be a thinner cake.

I'm fairly sure the roll cracked as I unrolled it to fill it because it was so incredibly sticky - it was totally adhered to the greaseproof paper despite plenty of loose caster sugar. Another time I would go a little overboard on the dusting - and I might try a different recipe to see how it goes. The recipe did state that you should simply fill with jam and roll up - not roll up, cool, and then fill. Perhaps this is because it cracks if you try! I didn't want to heat up the curd by putting it in the sponge early on, but perhaps if you left it to cool for a bit it would be fine. I've put the recipe below in the original - i.e. filling as you go.



Lemon Curd and Blueberry Swiss Roll

Edit: I now use this swiss roll recipe (includes how-to videos) and this lemon curd recipe.