Rock the kitchen with this delicious blueberry bake!
Recipe and styling by Nomvuselelo Mncube
Photograph by Dylan Swart
Blueberry and carrot bread with flavoured cream cheese
Ingredients
BREAD
- 4 extra large eggs
- 250g demerara sugar
- 330ml vegetable oil
- 10ml (2 tsp) vanilla essence
- 400g cake flour
- 15ml (1 tbsp) baking powder
- 7,5ml (1½ tsp) bicarbonate of soda
- 2,5ml (½ tsp) salt
- 7,5ml (1½ tsp) ground cinnamon
- 10ml (2 tsp) ground ginger
- 200g blueberries + extra, to sprinkle
- 1 large carrot, peeled and grated
- 6 (1½ cups) bananas, mashed
- 100g pecan nuts, roughly chopped
FLAVOURED CREAM CHEESE
- seeds of 1 vanilla pod
- 230g smooth cream cheese, at room temperature
- 30ml (2 tbsp) icing sugar, sifted
- zest of 1 orange
- 15ml (1 tbsp) lemon juice
- pinch salt
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease 2 loaf tins (of 1L capacity each) and line them with baking paper. Set aside until needed.
Cream the eggs and demerara sugar together in a medium bowl using hand-held beaters, 3 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add the vegetable oil and vanilla essence, and beat until the mixture is well combined.
Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, ground cinnamon and ground ginger, and add these dry ingredients to the egg mixture. Add the remaining ingredients and fold together until just combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tins and scatter extra berries on top. Bake, 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centres of the loaves comes out clean. Allow the loaves to cool in the tins, 5 minutes, then turn them out onto a wire cooling rack.
For the flavoured cream cheese, combine all of the ingredients in a serving bowl and stir until combined.
Serve the blueberry and carrot loaves with the flavoured cream cheese alongside for spreading.
Imka Webb is a freelance digital marketing expert and the digital editor of Food & Home Entertaining magazine. www.imkawebb.com
