Buttermilk-Blueberry Bread

I really like baking muffins with buttermilk for a low-fat, low calorie snack, but muffins are small, and breads that I baked with buttermilk have never turned out very well. But I didn't want to give up, and decided to try this recipe. The original recipe uses apricots (see comments), but I love blueberry muffins and tried this recipe with fresh blueberries instead. I am sure one can use any type of fresh fruit with this cake.

Ingredients:

Bread baking pan

Some grease

2 eggs

100 ml buttermilk

75 g sugar

grated zest of one lemon

200 g flour

1 package vanilla pudding powder (cook and serve)

1 pinch of salt

1 tablespoon potato starch

2 leveled teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda (Natron)

200 g fresh fruit (blueberries)

50 g confectioner's sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preparation

1. Grease baking pan and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350F).

2. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, lemon zest and sugar until foamy.

3. In a separate bowl combine flour, vanilla pudding powder, starch, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add liquid mixture to flour bowl and briefly mix until all dry components are moist.

4. Lastly, briefly stir in fresh fruit. Pour batter into greased pan and bake at 180 degrees Celsius (350F). After 10 min of baking cut cake in the middle about 1/2 inch or 1 cm deep. This will help the cake to rise properly and to form a nice crust. Bake cake for about another 40 min (total baking time should be around 50 min). Test if cake is done with a toothpick. If toothpick comes out clean, remove cake from oven, let stand for 5 min, then put baking pan upside down on a baking rack.

5. Mix powdered sugar with lemon juice and coat top of cake while still warm.

Comments:

1. Instead of pudding mix one can add a few drops of vanilla aroma and 30 g starch.

2. Buttermilk is quite sour. Thus, in addition of baking powder baking soda is added. The baking soda is important when baking with acidic ingredients such as buttermilk and lemon juice because baking powder is not working well with these agents.

3. The original recipe used 200 g fresh apricots and some leaves of lemon mint. The washed, padded dry and cut mint is added as the final ingredient to the egg mixture.

4. Cutting the cake after the initial 10 min of baking is important. Only then will the bread rise properly and form a nice crust.