Blueberry Cake...

This is one of our all time favourite cake recipes (and we eat a lot of different types of cake!). It's become a little tradition for me to make this for Andrew for his birthday. It still feels right though to try to hide any evidence of the cake while I'm making it eeeeven though he blatantly knows what I'm making him! For his birthday a couple of weeks ago we had some friends over for a bbq. I know meat is the main deal at a bbq but I firmly believe you always need a good pudding, so I made this and Eton mess to finish up the food.

I had plans to take lovely photos of this cake. But then prep for the bbq happened...and then it was far more fun to spend time with my friends...and then, it was time to eat cake! And this cake got demolished so quickly - so I only have my instagram images to share! But this recipe is so tasty I just can't justify not sharing it with you purely because i don't have a fancy photo :) I included the top photo to give you a hint of what to expect the cake to look like once baked, but the photo below shows just how pretty it is once the icing has been added!

Blueberry cake (from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

Ingredients -

350g unsalted butter

350g caster sugar

6 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

450g plain flour

2tbsp + 2tsp baking powder

280ml soured cream

250g fresh blueberries (plus extra to decorate)

For the icing -

600g icing sugar, sifted

100g unsalted butter

250g cream cheese

1x 25cm ring mould, greased.

1) Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

2) Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy

3) Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

4) Add the vanilla extract, flour and baking powder and beat until well incorporated.

5) Add the soured cream and mix until combined and the mixture is light and fluffy.

6) Stir in the blueberries and transfer the mixture to the cake tin. I think my tin is a bit smaller than 25cm, it does rise so leave space for this (the extra mixture made us 4 tasty cupcakes!).

7) Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tin prior to turning out to cool completely on a wire rack.

8) Once cool, cover with the icing, sprinkle over the blueberries and a light dusting of icing sugar.

To make the icing -

Beat the icing sugar and butter together until well mixed. Add the cream cheese and beat until the icing is light and fluffy. It recommends beating it for at least five minutes but be careful because over beating causes the icing to become runny.

Enjoy!