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Mary Berry Apple and Blackberry Cake Recipe

Mary Berry Apple and Blackberry Cake Recipe

Mary Berry's apple and blackberry cake is a moist, gently spiced cake studded with blackberries and apple — the most beautiful cake of autumn.
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Cooling Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Servings: 10 Slices
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: British
Calories: 350
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • Cake:
  • 225 g unsalted butter softened
  • 200 g soft light brown sugar
  • 3 large eggs room temperature
  • 225 g self-raising flour sifted
  • 1½ tsp baking powder
  • 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp mixed spice
  • 3 tbsp whole milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 250 g eating apples peeled, cored, and in 1cm dice — tossed in juice of ½ lemon
  • 200 g fresh or frozen blackberries do not defrost if frozen
  • Topping:
  • 2 tbsp demerara sugar
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • 50 g blackberries — pressed into the top
  • Lemon Glaze Optional:
  • 100 g icing sugar sifted
  • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Method
 

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / Gas 4. Grease and line a deep 23cm springform tin. Mix demerara and cinnamon — set aside.
  2. Beat butter and brown sugar 4–5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. Sift in flour, baking powder, and spices. Add milk — fold gently.
  3. Fold in diced apple. Fold in 200g blackberries with 3–4 gentle folds — keep blackberries mostly intact.
  4. Spoon into tin — spread gently. Press 50g blackberries into the surface decoratively. Scatter cinnamon demerara over the entire surface.
  5. Bake 45–55 minutes until golden and skewer comes out clean. Cover loosely after 35 minutes if browning too quickly. Cool in tin 20 minutes — release springform. Cool completely.
  6. Mix icing sugar and lemon juice — drizzle over cooled cake. Set 15 minutes. Slice.

Notes

Use frozen blackberries directly from frozen — defrosted blackberries make the batter wet and uniformly purple.
Fold blackberries with restraint — 3–4 gentle folds only. Over-folding crushes them.
Soft light brown sugar gives a warm, autumn flavour — white sugar is too flat here.
Press blackberries into the top decoratively — the arrangement is worth the extra minute.
The lemon glaze bridges the sweetness and the tartness — worth using.
Freeze without glaze for up to 3 months.
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