Blueberry Jam Vanilla Cake

Cake, in all it's various forms, is one of my diet weaknesses. I cannot resist a lovely slice of cake with a hot, sweet, cup of tea. Heavenly. 

This particular recipe gives a lovely, sticky and moist cake. I've haven't tried to put jam in a cake before and I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out, but I thought I'd give it a go and wasn't disappointed with the results. The jam flavour doesn't come through so much, but it did give it a lovely consistency, and you could always try to put more jam in if you want (though you might want to reduce the sugar levels accordingly). The cake came out quite small and it doesn't rise that much, so if you want a larger cake you might want to double up the quantities. On the other hand, you could easily make fairy cakes (or cupcakes as they are otherwise known) out of the mixture instead.

130g plain flour

135g caster sugar

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp of salt

40g unsalted butter/stork, at room temperature

120ml milk

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1  ½  tablespoons blueberry jam

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (gas mark 4). Grease and flour a square loaf tin.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. 

3. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder, and stir to combine. 

4. Add the milk and mix thoroughly. Stir the jam into the mixture loosely, so that it is not fully incorporated, and you can clearly see 'veins' of jam. Add to the cake/loaf tin.

3. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a fork inserted in the middle comes out clean. If you make cup cakes, bake for 20 - 25 mins.