Nici Wickes: Tradies’ Blueberry & Lemon Loaf Cake

Tradies’ Blueberry & Lemon Loaf Cake 

This loaf has such a delicate, buttery crumb and it’s absolutely gorgeous. 

Ingredients:

Makes one loaf 

• 190g sugar 
• 2 tbsps lemon zest 
• 150g butter, softened
• 3 medium eggs
• 90g flour + extra for dusting blueberries
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 110g ground almonds
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 150g fresh blueberries
• ½ cup icing sugar
• Few drops of lemon juice and water 

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180 C fan bake. Grease and line a large loaf tin. 

2. Briefly pulse sugar with lemon zest in food processor. 

3. Cream the butter lemon sugar until really light and fluffy. Add in your eggs one at a time, beating between each and not worrying that it curdles a little, just move along and stir in the flour, baking powder, ground almonds and lemon juice. Make sure it’s all well combined but don’t overmix it. Lastly, fold in all the blueberries (dusted in a little flour). 

4. Gently scrape batter into the tin and bake 45-55 more minutes or until a skewer comes out with a few crumbs clinging to it. Cover with foil during cooking if it darkens too much. Cool in the tin before carefully turning out. 

5. Mix icing sugar with lemon juice and water to make a thin drizzle. 

6. When loaf is completely cool drizzle over icing and serve in slices. 

Other good food for hard-working tradespeople: 

Pizza using wraps for the base 

Fried Rice 

A decent sandwich – well seasoned and stuff with ham, cheese, beetroot, lettuce, mustard etc 

Afghans with raspberry icing 

Bacon & egg pie 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be ten to ten. NICKI Wex's in this morning.
Good morning, Yeah, cureda Jack. Well, you've pulled off a
miracle of sorts. You've managed to get the trades around
at your place and they're staying there.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I know, I know a tradees the local trades confessed
to me that they don't mind doing work at my place,
and I wonder.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm not surprised one bit at that.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I still like to hold on to this tradition of
cooking for tradespeople. And one of them confided in me
that's sort of sixteen years ago when he started his apprenticeship,
it was still common practice to get scones and teen things.
He said. That's drastically dropped off, he said, so I
like to keep it up. So look, I've been tuning
out sort of pizzas, using wraps for a base to

(00:54):
make them quick and easy. Fried rice I did one day.
A decent sandwich. You cannot go amiss with a decent
sandwich needs to be well seasoned, it needs to be
stuffed full of all of the good stuff. I've been
baking this that the other. I have a particular cake
tin that I always say to whoever's working here that
will have something in it for you that have with
a cuppa. And this or last week it was a

(01:16):
blueberry and lemon loaf cake jack and it was a winner.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Ah sounds amazing, okay, So Runner through it all right.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
So all we do. Oven goes on one eight degrees
in line, and I've got quite a large loaf tin
because oh, I'll tell you what trades. People can eat
a lot. Briefly in a food process, A pulse some
sugar and lemon zest. I use one hundred and ninety
grams of sugar or if that's about three quarters of
a cup plus a little bit of cast to sugar,

(01:43):
two good tablespoons of a lemon zest, and you just
sort of, you know, sort of pulse it so that
it becomes kind of like damp sand and it stops
the lemon zest in getting caught around the beta. When
you do this next stage, which is to cream the
butter and the sugar, and I've used one hundred and
fifty grams of softened butter. Make sure that's really light
and fluffy, and start adding in your three eggs, one

(02:04):
at a time, beating between each one of them. Don't wave.
It kurdles a little bit. This cool weather will bring
that on sometimes. And then a little bit of flour
ninety grams of flour, half a teaspoon of baking powder,
and one hundred and ten grams of almonds. The almonds
give this cake of real richness. They're full of protein,
so they're a bit more sustaining than just putting in

(02:25):
all of it in flour, so I love to use that.
And then I also use about a quart of a
cup of lemon juice or sort of whatever I've got
out of the lemons that I zested, and mix that altogether.
You don't want to overmix it. Lastly, I dust some
blueberries and I've used about one hundred and fifty grams
of blueberries. Dust those in a little flour. It sort
of stops them sinking to the bottom, but not all ways.

(02:46):
So there you go, fold those through our batter and
scrape that batter into the loaf tin. I usually line
my loaf tin just to be on the safe side,
and I cook that about forty five to fifty five minutes,
or until a skewer comes out just a few crumbs
kind of clinging to it, and then when it once
it's kind of cooled down, I just make one of
those lemon drizzle icings for it, half a cup of

(03:09):
icing sugar or thereabouts, and just make that into a
running icing with a little bit of water and some
lemon juice and drizzle that over the top so that
it's quite thin. So that's not like some silly cupcake
with a huge, big amount of icing. But it's just
just enough. And it's too tart as well, which is
quite lovely. Yeah, And it's just look a loaf cake
is wonderful. It's practical, it's easy to cut, it's easy

(03:30):
to eat, it's all of those things. So I've had
no complaints yet.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, I bet you haven't. But I'm worried, Nikki. I'm worried. Well,
I mean, think about the incentives here. What incentive do
the trades have to finish up their work in a
timely fashion? I just know that I bet there hasn't
been a project that your place that hasn't had a
time overrun by.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
A few days.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
You know, I.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Always get it. I always get a cost up front
for this reason, Jack Tame, I'm not very wise. I
came back to the beach the other day with three
vans on my lord and I went, that's an expensive
lawn because I had, you know, a plumber and electrician
and the lovely building. It's a small job and all
of them and they've been doing a great job. So
very happy.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Oh good. I'm glad to hear it. Thank you so much, Nicky.
Nicki's amazing sounding. Trade's blueberry and lemon loaf cake recipe
will be on the News Talk's EDB website.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio