Blueberry Lemon Drizzle Cake

Well here I am the eve before a 4 day vacation from work and all I can think about is working in the kitchen. I've been wanting to try a recipe in a new book I just recently purchased, and now seemed like a good a time as any, plus the blueberries I bought were calling out 'Now or never lady', so hence the latest entry of blueberry lemon drizzle cake. This new book was apparently written in the UK because some of the measurements and ingredients were unfamiliar to me. For instance, "scant" or "golden superfine sugar" -- what are those? I am fairly new to the baking world, so these terms were unfamiliar to me. A few phone calls, googling and dictionary.com'ing and I was all caught up. The internet is truly a wonderful tool, oh and so is my foodie partner Pat. I made small modifications to this recipe. I used bread flour instead of self-rising and I had no golden superfine sugar, so I put light brown sugar in the food processor and ta-daa golden superfine sugar. Oh, well you can't really call this a modification, but I added a little extra lemon drizzle because I like that flavor oh so much. The result was really fantastic. The cake was moist and there were blueberries popping out everywhere. Lemon and blueberry always make a good couple. Give it a try and let us know what you think.


The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients -
8 oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
1 cup golden superfine sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1 3/4 cups self-rising flour, sifted
finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup ground almonds
7 oz fresh blueberries

Topping -
juice of 2 lemons
1/2 c golden superfine sugar

Directions -
1. Grease and line the bottom of an 8-inch square cake pan. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, adding a little flour toward the end to prevent curdling. Beat in the lemon zest, then fold in the remaining flour and almonds with enough of the lemon juice to give a good dropping consistency.

2. Fold in 3/4 of the blueberries and turn into the prepared pan. Smooth the surface, then scatter the remaining blueberries on top. Bake in a preheated oven, 350 degrees, for 1 hour, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into center comes out clean.

3. To make the topping, place the lemon juice and sugar in a bowl and mix together. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, prick it all over with a fine skewer and pour over the lemon cake. Let cool in the pan until completely cold, then cut into 12 squares to serve.