Summer is not just about ice cream for dessert. The abundance of soft fruit, berries followed by cherries, apricots and peaches, mean we can bake lighter (dare I say healthier? nah, probably not but who cares?), vibrant and juicy treats.
And if you think twice about turning on the oven in a heatwave – well, in the UK heatwaves don’t last long as we have found time and again. Plus, the scents wafting throughout the house when a berry crumble cake bakes are beyond divine.
Here’s my collection of our summery favourites – all mixed in about 30 minutes, many not requiring any electric appliances (apart from the oven, he he).
Delicious, failproof and versatile – possibly my number one summer cake. The crumble topping is mixed in one bowl, the cake batter in another, and in between you can scatter whichever berries are abundant. Strawberries can be replaced with blueberries, raspberries or blackberries. Later in the season the plum version comes in, and again, instead of plums use apricots, peach chunks or cherries.
Strawberry crumble cake
RECIPE
Mascarpone is technically a cheese, but this is not a cheesecake: it’s a rich, delightful loaf cake studded with purple blueberries. A slice with afternoon tea or coffee always leads to another slice, that’s the only trouble. And it’s the so called ‘bucket cake’: one bowl, dry into wet ingredients and it’s done.
Mascarpone blueberry cake
RECIPE
This cake is incredibly easy to mix: no eggs, no butter, 4 main ingredients, and the magic way buttermilk reacts with bicarbonate of soda makes the batter rise airily in spite of no baking powder in the mix. It is gorgeous in the loaf tin with raspberries, and I also have the cherry version baked in a square brownie tin.
This cake is like a Bellini cocktail in the cake form: feel free to serve it with a glass of Prosecco for a full experience. A pound cake, but there’s no beating butter until fluffy because it’s the ‘wet into dry’ ingredients method, with the butter melted and cooled. And the best thing is it starts off like a smoothie – by blending peaches into a puree!
If you want a mix of berries in one cake, there’s hardly anything more decorative than this. A little more like a tart or flan than a full height cake, it has a great texture thanks to the mix of various flours: plain and wholemeal, almond and buckwheat. Bake it in a tin or a shallow tart case and arrange the berries on top prettily. Best freshly baked!
Buckwheat berry striped cake
RECIPE
Redcurrants are such an underrated cake material! It’s not just redcurrant jelly they are good for: they give sweet cakes a lovely tang and they don’t sink to the bottom, the tiny red jewels that they are. The pips only provide an interest in the texture and you can slip the berries off the stems with a fork easily. And if you don’t trust redcurrants, there’s the same cake in the raspberry version.
Upside down cakes with soft fruit, the wildly varied confections inspired by tarte Tatin, are the ultimate prevention against the fruit sinking to the bottom of the cake: it’s already there! Upside down cakes can be made with flan or shortcrust type of pastry, but also regular sponge, like this recipe, an easy yoghurt batter. Just make sure you bake it in a leak-proof tin!
Upside down cherry cake
RECIPE
A riff on Bakewell tart, this is a fresh raspberry traybake, cut into slices, eaten with your fingers. It’s quick to make but quicker with an electric mixer: beating butter with sugar and eggs is not my favourite handiwork.
Raspberry and almond slice
RECIPE
You might think this is not so quick and easy, and you’ll be right if you embark on the original with prune filling. But there is an easy hack version of the gateau, common in the Basque country. Instead of the prune puree, grab a jar of good jam and then it’s five minutes to make the pastry, fifteen to assemble and the outcome is a gorgeous jam pie.
My collection would not be complete without at least one chocolate cake – and this one is both gorgeous and ridiculously easy. Samin Nosrat’s chocolate cake to which I add chunks of glace cherries. It’s made the old fashioned way, with cocoa powder rather than chocolate. But you’d never guess on tasting!
Chocolate and glace cherry cake
RECIPE
More cake recipes to choose from and plenty of summery recipe inspiration in my content pages!