I’m a big fan of the tart and sweet taste of lingonberries.

Lingonberry jam is great with meatballs or venison. It just gives meat dishes this little bit of extra oomph.

So far, I’ve never used them for baking until I came across this more unusual recipe from South Tyrol.

Lingonberries aren’t the only exciting ingredient in this cake though. Instead of normal flour, it uses buckwheat flour, which has a lovely nutty and earthy flavour. And it is gluten-free as well.

Add some nuts and dark chocolate to the mix and you’ll get a pretty delicious, fluffy cake. Give it a try!

Tip - if you struggle to find the lingonberry jam in the supermarket, go to IKEA…

Happy Baking!

Ingredients

For the cake

150g of buckwheat flour

30g cornflour

150g hazelnuts (toasted and chopped)

100g dark chocolate (roughly chopped)

1 tsp baking powder

200g sugar

200g butter (softened)

6 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

250g lingonberry jam

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease a 24cm cake tin.

2. Combine the dry ingredients - flour, cornflour, baking powder, nuts, chocolate and cinnamon.

3. Separate the eggs. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff. Gradually add 100g of sugar and keep whisking until you get a shiny texture.

4. In another bowl, beat together the butter and 100g of sugar until you get a light texture. Add one egg yolk at a time and keep mixing.

5. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients until well combined.

6. With a spatula, carefully fold in the egg whites.

7. Spread half of the batter in the cake tin.

8. Add blobs of the lingonberry jam (about half of it) on top. Followed by the second half of the batter and the rest of the lingonberry jam to finish off.

9. Bake in the oven for about 50 min. If the cake gets too dark cover it with foil.

10. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

11. To garnish, you can dust it with icing sugar if you like.