Lemon and Blueberry Cake with Coconut Streusel

This recipe is proving to be one of the best I've found. Not only can the basic flavour be varied easily, but the batter is stiff enough to take additions such as chocolate chips and dried fruit without them sinking during baking. The polenta and almonds can also be swapped for more flour, if that is more convenient, without spoiling the recipe. I find it really comforting to know I have a set of good recipes that I can rely on when my imagination fails or time is short.

This time I followed the basic recipe (leaving off the lemon syrup after baking), and added 70g of dried blueberries that had been soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes. For the topping, I mixed 75g plain flour, 50g sugar, 35g desiccated coconut and 50mls sunflower oil. The oil brought the other ingredients together into a nicely clumped crumble, which wasn't too dry and powdery when sprinkled over the cake. The topping seemed to insulate the cake from the oven heat, which meant the cake took about 10 minutes longer to bake. The coconut browned nicely during baking, giving the streusel topping an attractive appearance.

This was a lovely textured cake, moist but still light, with a delicate flavour. If it wasn't for the addition of the coconut and blueberries, I might have liked a stronger lemon flavour, but as it was, the three flavours were perfectly balanced.

My next step is to try this recipe with fresh fruit - if it works well then I have an almost complete set of low saturated fat, adaptable recipes which don't need improvement - a light chocolate cake, a sponge cake, a brownie recipe and this one which covers most other needs. I don't expect that I'll give up trying other recipes though - I'm always finding goodies I want to bake, and CT is hoping to leave home soon, so low saturated fat baking won't be necessary much longer!