Blueberry and Pecan Muffin Cake

With muffins it's always a good idea to have everything weighed out and ready before you start.

Begin by sifting the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt into a bowl, lifting the sieve up high to give the flour a good airing. Now, in another bowl whisk together the milk, sugar, eggs and melted butter. Then return the dry ingredients to the sieve and sift them straight into the egg mixture. (This double sifting is crucial because we won’t be doing much mixing.) Next take a large metal spoon and fold the dry ingredients quickly into the wet ones – the key word here is quickly (i.e. in about 15 seconds). What you must not do is beat or stir the mixture – just do the folding, and ignore the uneven appearance of the mixture because it’s precisely this that makes the muffins really light. Over-mixing is where people go wrong.

After that quickly fold in the blueberries (again no stirring). Now spoon the mixture into the tin. Sprinkle the extra blueberries over, followed by the demerara sugar and chopped pecans. Place the cake near the centre of the oven and give it 1 hour, until it feels springy in the centre. Let the cake cool in the tin for 30 minutes, then loosen it all round with a palette knife. Place the cake tin on an upturned bowl or similar and gently ease the sides down. Then loosen the base with a palette knife and transfer the cake to a wire rack to finish cooling. Store in an airtight tin.

Dust with a little icing sugar just before serving.