Yep, it’s definitely autumn. The leaves are turning red, orange, yellow and gold, and there’s quite definitely a chill in the air in the mornings. We are so lucky here with day length in the summer, when we barely see any darkness, but the nights are now drawing in quite quickly. The garden is a riot of autumnal colours (the blueberry bushes are particularly beautiful)…..
and it’s also full of fruit – it has been a really good year for berries and the apples are looking amazing. I’ve picked most of the eating apples (the tree is quite small) and Mr McGregor will be sent to climb the cooking apple tree next weekend…. We also have a few pears on the tree, but this is the only one that looks as if I might be able to eat it
Mr McGregor is a little worried about his Brussels sprouts this year – we usually eat them later in the year but they are almost ready now…
I made this Blackberry, lime and elderflower cake today, to use up more of our blackberry glut!
Blackberry, lime and elderflower cake (pdf: Blackberry, lime and elderflower cake)
For cake:
225g self raising flour
75g polenta
150g softened butter
60g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
juice and zest of 1 lime
2 tablespoons milk
200g blackberries
For drizzle:
100ml diluted elderflower cordial
juice and zest of half a lime (or whole lime if you wish)
- Preheat oven to 160 degrees, grease and line a 23cm cake tin
- Mix all cake ingredients except blacberries
- Spoon into tin and put blackberries on top
- Bake for ~30 minutes until a skewer comes out clean
- Pour drizzle on top while cake is still warm and leave to cool in the tin
sweet enough bakes 