I've officially dubbed summer 2022 as the "Summer of Fruit Bakes" and I come to you this week with yet another fruit cake. What can I say -- in summer, eat fruit and lots of it. Come winter the memory (and perhaps preserves?) will keep us going when the blueberries are wan and the nectarines expensive. In season fruit is the sweetest thing, literally. For the cake recipe I'm sharing today, I folded beautiful blackberries into a buckwheat flour batter sweetened with honey and seasoned with lemon zest and a tiny kiss of cinnamon. It is all that a summer fruit cake aspires to be.
I chose to use just buckwheat flour as the gluten-free flour in this cake and it is perfect. Between you and me, I didn't love the taste of buckwheat when I first tried it; it's definitely unique, a facet I have come to truly appreciate! It's great in chocolate cakes but it's also wonderful in vanilla cakes such as this one. Honey is a natural companion and the two admittedly strong flavors work nicely together. A tip when baking with buckwheat flour: mix it in lightly at the end of your preparation. Buckwheat flour can make bakes gummy if over mixed so folding it in gently before baking helps to alleviate this. Blackberries, which are starting to come in, make this a lovely cake for late summer.
Til next time – N x
Need substitutions? Swap oat flour flour for the buckwheat flour. Try maple syrup for the honey.
Gluten-Free Blackberry Honey Cake
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup honey
- ¼ cup raw sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ cup Greek yogurt
- 2 lemons, zested
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 ¼ cup/210 g buckwheat flour
- 2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries
- ½ cup sliced almonds
Instructions
- Lightly grease an 8 or 9-inch cake round and line with a circle of parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter, honey, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly on medium speed until well combined. Beat in the Greek yogurt, vanilla, and lemon zest until well combined.
- Add the baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix on low speed. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the buckwheat flour until incorporated; be careful not to over mix. Then, equally as gently, fold in the blackberries.
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Scatter the sliced almonds across the top if using. Let batter rest while oven heats, then place pan in oven and bake for about 35-45 minutes, checking at 35 minutes and at regular intervals, until the cake's surface is slightly firm, a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, and the edges are just pulling away from the pan.
- Remove cake from oven, place on a wire rack, and let cool for 20 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely. Cake will keep, well wrapped in plastic, for 3 days in the fridge.
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