Sun, sea, sand and a summer fruits loaded picnic cake!
It’s really not been much of a summer to speak of, here in Shetland. Saying that, I don’t think the UK mainland has been particularly blessed with an abundance of rays this season either.
We’ve had a couple of good weekends – see our camping adventures at the Nesbister Bod and that glorious day I went kayaking in Ronas Voe – and then gales and Autumn weather descended on us like a lump of wet porridge. This whole last week included grey dreary skies and high winds, warm winds, but high winds nonetheless. We’d resigned ourselves for poor weather again until March.
And then we had two full days of sun! Still windy, but sunny!
Adventuring was needing to be had.
We packed a picnic lunch and went to meet some friends at St. Ninian’s beach for a BBQ lunch. Because of the wind our usual cave location was inhabitable – whirlwinds of sand were flung at high velocity into ones face and eyes. Instead, we set up base on the sheltered side of the beach and sat and basked in the glorious, wonderful rays.
The sea was still a bit too cold for some of us to go for a swim (ie: me!), but quite a few of our group donned wet suits and splashed about. It was a great opportunity for DD to play with her new Nerf Rebelle Agent bow sent to us recently from House of Fraser. Those arrows can certainly fly!
I’m never one to pass up the opportunity to bake and share a cake, so my offering for the picnic was a summer fruits cake based on this recipe by Nigel Slater. I used up some free range Shetland duck eggs that were loitering in my fridge, the tail ends of three different bags of sugar (the last of two packets of golden caster and regular caster sugars, topped up with granulated), and the beautiful berries my children (ie: mostly, quite possibly entirely, DD) picked from a neighbour’s fruit garden. There were loads of red currants, black currants and gooseberries with a few raspberries thrown in for good measure.
I also made a pretty awesome lower calorie potato salad using some Shetlandeli Spiggie Courgette Relish. This recipe will be shared at a later date, once I take some better photographs. Do I need to take better photographs? Maybe I’ll just share the recipe with what I have… what do you think?
I have to confess to having not tried my own cake creation. I’m calorie counting in an attempt to shed the 3 kg I seemed to gain over the summer holidays, so no more cake for me for a little while! The nods, compliments and noises of approval from everyone who ate the cake, and the fact I returned home with only the tiniest of slivers attests to how lovely it must have been.
We sat on the beach and soaked in the sun for hours and hours. It was perfect! Afterwards, because the evening sun was still bright we took a detour on the way home and went on another grand adventure… this will soon be described in another blog post. 🙂
What’s your favourite picnic recipe? Do you have a signature dish you bring to outdoor gatherings? Share it with me in the comments below!
Summer Fruits Picnic Cake
Ingredients
- 175 grams butter
- 175 grams caster sugar
- 2 duck eggs (or large hens eggs)
- 175 grams self-raising flour
- 100 grams ground almonds
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 300 grams mixed summer fruits
- icing sugar to dust
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Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 C/ 160 C fan and grease and line a 20 cm round cake tin.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between additions. Add the vanilla.
- Sift in the flour, and add the ground almonds. Combine well. The mixture will be thick.
- Fold in the fruit and spoon into the prepared tin, leveling the top with a spatula.
- Bake for 60 minutes, or until a skewer, inserted in the middle, comes out clean and the top of the cake is lovely and golden.
- Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Dust with plenty of icing sugar and serve!
LINKING UP WITH A FEW FOOD BLOGGING CHALLENGES
Love Cake by Jibber Jabber UK
Simply Eggcellent by Belleau Kitchen
Recipe of the Week by A Mummy Too
OTHER SUMMER FRUIT CAKE RECIPES YOU MIGHT LIKE
Healthier Berry Summer Slice by Hungry Healthy Happy
Blueberry Loaf Cake with Lime Drizzle by Tinned Tomatoes
Strawberry Rhubarb Upside Down Cake by Cook Sister
Lemon Cardamom Courgette Cake by Recipes from a Pantry
Poppy Seed & Plum Cake by Ren Behan Food
Plum Berry Upside Down Skillet Cobbler by Kellie’s Food to Glow
Strawberry Banchocolate Muffins by Fab Food 4 All
Cherry Cheesecake Cupcakes by The Veg Space
Strawberry Black Pepper Muffins by The Hedgecombers
Raspberry White Chocolate Friands by Tin & Thyme
Summer Fruit Cake Tray Bake by Sew White
Apple Cinnamon Cake by My Little Sunny Kitchen
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Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary was sent a House of Fraser toy in exchange for a feature in a blog post. All thoughts and opinions expressed are our own. This is not a paid post.
Ebbing Shores {Book Review}
looks delicious, great recipe & blog post
What beautiful memories I had about those long beachy days on holiday to English beaches. Thank you.
Lovely pictures. This cake looks lovely and moist and delicious, shame I’m on a diet 🙁
I am very jealous. That delicious cake and beautiful beach. Take me with you next time 🙂
Im pregnant with twins and I love cake at the moment. This looks scrummy. I want now!!!! x
Super views and cake 🙂
What gorgeous photos! Makes me want to drive out to the coast asap! The cake looks wonderful – I’d happily eat the lot!
The cake looks so tasty and what a fun day at the beach you all had!
It looks delicious.
I shall try it with a different selection of fruits and see how it turns out.
I never thought to bake a cake for a beach gathering, I think you have influenced me for the next outdoor adventure, I’m sure the Mrs will be pleased if I bake and pack a cake, will make a welcome change to the standard chocolate cakes I seem to always be baking!
Camping and cake. Perfect. That potato salad sounds delicious as well. What a lovely time spent with the family!
What a delicious, fruity cake and a lovely family day at the sea!
oh my gosh how delicious! That cake sounds amazing. And to eat it somewhere that is so beautiful too! You’re very lucky. I would love to visit here! Thank you so much for linking up to #whatevertheweather x
What a perfect cake to take on a picnic, nay adventure! I love summer fruits and this looks a delicious way of incorporating them in a cake.
I do so enjoy your photos of your beautiful island, although I think I would struggle with the cold.
Your cake looks amazing too….. so moist and fruity!
Where you live looks so gorgeous. I need to move there.
Cake looks amazing! You can come out for the day with us anytime! #whatevertheweather
Glad you managed to get a few rays of summer in between the rain. Shetland looks so very beautiful, I sort of think it might be worth the rubbish weather for the sheer wildness of it. That’s what keeps me going in Cornwall, which is renowned for it’s damp climate. Having said that, I’ve rather enjoyed this summer as it’s been dry. I don’t mind the cold, but I do hate the rain if it stops us getting out and about. Apart from the last few days which have been dreadful – day 6 of almost solid rain today 🙁
Your cake looks fabulous BTW but I do think you needed to try it, if only a slither. Thanks for including a link to one of my recipes 🙂
It looks gorgeous! Both the beach and the cake! We still have a load of currants and a few raspberries left, so could make this soon with my eldest.
I need to visit Shetland, I have friends in Orkney and visited once when at uni, and hopefully going back next year for a wedding, but so far I haven’t ventured up as far as Shetland, I definitely need to, as it looks beautiful!
Thanks for linking up to #Whatevertheweather! 🙂 x
Such gorgeous photos! Thanks for sharing this recipe, it looks so yummy!!
Becky-LittleOandme
What a lovely surprise to get out the the beach and soak up the sun. Looks like a wonderful fun day and the cake looks delicious! #Whatevertheweather
Eye spy Spiggie!! That cake looks totally lush – I would love to make something like that!
Ah, St. Ninian’s! We never made it as far south as Spiggie. Too much sitting in the sun at St. Ninian’s 🙂
That’s my kind of cake!
i know… summer’s rubbish isn’t it… and then suddenly you have a glorious day but it’s still all about the sweaters… This cake, which is summer in a cake is essentially the only answer to bring sunshine into your life. A lovely link to Simply Eggcellent, thank you x
Your ‘better’ photographs are still beautiful so I say share the recipe anyway! You must have a will of iron to have not eaten any of this cake. So simple yet gorgeous.
That cake looks amazing! Can I come on a picnic with you next time?
Love this, it looks so moist! Perhaps we’ll get a few more days of sunshine this summer to enjoy it with!
I make something very similar to this and keep frozen berries in the freezer so I can throw one together quickly when I need a reminder of summer in the middle of winter!
OMG that cake looks amazing, I’ve bookmarked the recipe and hope to try making it once I get the ingredients in. Thanks so much for sharing this.
Oh, the colour of that blue sky and sea is to die for! What a perfect setting for a picnic and I love the idea of the fruit in the cake! Yum!
The recipe looks yummy. Also looks like you had a nice family day out.
I can’t get over how amazingly different your life is. It looks like a different world – so beautiful. I would really love to visit. The cake looks lovely as well – glad I am not the only one to combine odds and ends of sugar packets in my baking!