Blackberries are my favorite type of fruit. They and black mulberries, but the only country where I found the latter so far was Turkey. I can, in contrast, buy blackberries on almost every street corner here in New York City. I love the small fruit stands that are throughout (at least) all of Manhattan. They sell fruits and sometimes also vegetables for little money and definitely for far less than supermarkets. So this is where we usually get our doses of vitamins from. My boyfriend is more of a blueberry fan and has them usually for breakfast. We both love raspberries which means that they usually don’t last until breakfast. But if left to myself, I will always go for blackberries. They are sweet, flavorful and a little crunchy.
Sometimes the stands (by the way my favorite is on the corner of 34th Street and 3rd Avenue; the one between 37th and 38th Street on 3rd Avenue is a hot contender though) sell slightly tired blackberries. Not that I complain about more than a pound of them for $3 or $4. It is more that I am aware that even I won’t be able to nosh on all of them immediately. This is when I use our not as small as in Boston kitchen and make cake. Since we both here have a sweet tooth, I try to bake about once a week. Last week for instance I processed tired strawberries ($1 per pound!!!) into delicious muffins.
This week is blackberry cake week. I came up with combining blackberries and mint. I think the mint adds a fresh flavor – and since it is still hot outside, that is welcome. Besides, this means that I don’t want to stand in the kitchen too long because our A.C. doesn’t really go that far. I rather make a simple cake that doesn’t need a lot of preparation. Once it is in the oven, I just leave the kitchen and relax. And eat the leftover blackberries because I absolutely don’t want them to go bad.
Then I just wait. I think during summer vacation I am pretty good with just waiting and not doing much else. Saying this, when I made this blackberry mint bread, I also noticed that our kitchen floor was in dire need of a good scrubbing. That might have happened when one egg burst in my hands and dripped on the floor. I can’t remember to have ever had eggs with such thin shells before. So after eating the remaining blackberries, I didn’t take a well deserved nap on the sofa, but actually got water and scoured the floor. Soon enough the typical smell of cleaning agents was fortunately covered by the delicious scent of my blackberry mint bread.
You can make this blackberry mint bread even if you do not have summer vacation. It is quickly made and the oven actually works most. Just buy eggs with proper shells. Unless you want to mop your floor. I think other great combinations would be blackberry and basil as well as raspberry and mint.
Blackberry Mint Bread
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 200 g sugar + another 100 g sugar
- 375 g blackberries
- 175 ml vegetable oil plus a little more for the loaf pan
- 360 g flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 4 tbsp. fresh mint
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F)
- In a big bowl whisk the eggs with 200 g sugar.
- In another bowl mix the blackberries with 100 g sugar. Mash them carefully - I used a potato masher, but a big fork should work just as well.
- Add the mashed blackberries to the batter as well as the oil. Stir.
- Add the flour, the backing powder and the salt. Mix well.
- Finally chop the mint up and stir it in.
- Carefully grease a loaf pan with vegetable oil.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake in the oven for 1 hour.
In case you have always wondered: cherries are my third favorite type of fruit 😉 .
© janavar