From the Witches Kitchen
Lammas Blackberry & Apple Cake Recipe
Make a soft blackberry and apple cake for Lammas, finished with cinnamon, crunchy hazelnuts and a little demerara sugar.
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
50–55 minutes
Serves
8–10 slices
Ingredients
For the cake
- 125g softened butter
- 125g caster sugar
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 50g ground almonds
- 100g self-raising flour
- 2 tart eating apples, peeled and sliced
- 100g fresh blackberries
For the topping
- Pinch of cinnamon
- 2 tbsp demerara sugar
- 25g butter, in flakes
- 25g toasted hazelnuts, chopped
- Icing sugar, optional
Kitchen Witch Notes
Lammas is a first-harvest festival: a good time to notice effort, growth and the things that have quietly come to fruition. In folk-style correspondences, apple is often linked with wisdom, blackberry with resilience and cinnamon with warmth and abundance.
Serving Suggestions
Serve warm with cream or custard, with a cup of tea, or cold from the tin at midnight. The cake keeps well for a couple of days in an airtight tin.
Introduction
When the blackberries are ripe, the apples are piling up and somebody is trying to give you a courgette the size of a toddler, it is Lammas.
This is a proper late-summer cake: soft sponge, tart fruit and a crunchy top, made for sharing or quietly claiming a second slice when nobody is looking.
Method
- Heat the oven to 160°C, 140°C fan or Gas Mark 3. Grease and line a 22cm cake tin.
- Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs a little at a time, then fold in the flour and ground almonds.
- Fold in the blackberries and two-thirds of the apple slices. Spoon into the tin and arrange the remaining apple over the top.
- Sprinkle with cinnamon and demerara sugar, dot with butter and scatter over the hazelnuts.
- Bake for 50–55 minutes, until golden and a skewer comes out mostly clean. Cool slightly before serving.
Swaps & Variations
Use pears instead of apple, or almonds instead of hazelnuts. Leave the nuts out entirely if needed; the cake will still be lovely.
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