Blackberry Drizzle Cake

Occasionally, just occasionally, I get itchy feet in the kitchen. I start to get a bit bored with the everyday bakes and go through a little bit of a “surely there’s more to life than sponge?!” phase. My kitchen mood can be quite temperamental at times and I can fly from finding true depth of beauty in a classic light, nicely balanced Victoria sponge to finding it so drably conservative that I wonder why it even exists.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I get lazy in the kitchen. Really, really lazy. And, while I may have a massive urge to bake, I suddenly feel like cracking an egg is too much of an effort. But when an urge is urged there is no stopping it. A compulsion to bake is a hard one to ignore so I find myself in this situation where I really want to do create something really exciting but the bothering to even think about it is too much. I’m pretty certain other people go through the same thing but with slightly more normal things like the desire to go shopping but the desperate need to stay in their pyjamas (bonus to baking; you can bake in your jammies!).

When it occurs that I want to be creative but really can’t be bothered to be I tend to turn to giving a classic a twist. A Victoria sponge into a passion fruit sponge, a chocolate cake into a beetroot and chocolate cake, lemon drizzle into blackberry drizzle!

The concept was simple, the execution was not. Turns out blackberry juice doesn’t drizzle as well as lemon juice does.

As always in these situations as soon as I was in the kitchen the enthusiasm returned tenfold and in order to make up for the diabolical attempt of drizzling un-drizzleable (making it a word) fruit I decided to cover the cake with chocolate butter icing instead.

Once you get through the buttercream there is, surprisingly, a hint of blackberry. Rather than drizzling it seems to soak. Either way you end up with spongey-y, blackberry-y, chocolate-y goodness. Thank the Holy Mary Berry for lazy inspiration bakes!

The Cake:

200g caster sugar

200g butter

4 eggs

200g self raising flour

1tsp Baking Powder

2 tbsp milk

Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and combine. Fold in flour and baking powder and milk. Bake in oven at 180c for 10 to 30mins depending on size of cake.

White Chocolate Buttercream:

70g butter

70g icing sugar

50g white chocolate

Melt white chocolate, leave to cool. Combine butter and sugar then add white chocolate.

Chocolate Buttercream:

70g butter

50g icing sugar

20g cocoa powder

Combine all.

Blackberry Drizzle:

100g blackberries

50g icing sugar

A bit of water

Heat the blackberries to release juices. Sieve. Leave to cool. Combine juice with icing sugar and add water if needed.

Once sponge is baked allow to cool slightly before puncturing with a skewer and drizzling blackberry mix over sponge.

Now decorate with the butter creams and any left over blackberries or drizzle!