Blueberry Poppy Seed Snacking Cake

I adapted this recipe slightly from Cook Republic, which itself had adapted from Tara O’Brady’s recipe (published in her cookbook). It is a really great cake for snacking, as it isn’t too sweet, but we ate it for dessert. Note that I used white whole wheat flour with a bit of corn starch instead of cake flour, and I used turbinado sugar because I happened to have a bag of it on hand and needed to use it up. It was really good!

255 g. unbleached cake flour
2 Tbsp. poppy seeds
1 pinch of crushed sea salt flakes
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter or margarine, softened
250 g. turbinado sugar (cane sugar will do, but use a bit less)
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla bean paste
2 Tbsp. crème fraîche (or lactose-free sour cream or Greek yogurt)
zest of 1 small orange or lemon, finely chopped
juice of half a small orange
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen)

Preheat oven to 300 °F. Grease and line a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper; grease the paper again.

Whisk flour, poppy seeds, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar for 5 minutes with an electric beater until pale and fluffy. Add vanilla, eggs, crème fraiche, orange juice and zest. Beat until smooth.

Fold the flour mixture and blueberries in the wet batter gently until thoroughly combined.

Scrape into the prepared pan and bake for approximately 55-60 min until golden, cooked through the middle when tested with a skewer, and coming away from the edges.