Well I thought it was high time that I post about cake on Sophielikescake. It has been a while.
It's not like I haven't been making cakes. They just all seem to be variants of chocolate put together in different ways. I made Alex a two tiered chocolate and raspberry birthday cake the other week and dizzled over berry coulis and made a mountain of freshly picked raspberries on top. Sure did look epic. He didn't want a pretty cake so I think this purposely messy creation suited quite well.
I like making birthday cakes. I love the joy on the persons face when they see them. Who after all doesn't love being made a birthday cake??
For the record, only one person other than my Mum and Dad have made me a birthday cake and that was my friend Sarah, who in high school, constructed a bucky ball out of toothpicks and mini muffins. To date, it has been the coolest birthday cake I have ever received.
That totally wasn't a hint or anything to anyone. . . .
So the Friday just been I was sitting around not doing anything (quite bored out of my mind actually) when my brother Jack text me asking if we could bake something for his friends birthday party that night. I actually jumped out of my seat and dove into my cookbook collection to seek inspiration.
I actually drew diagrams of potential cakes. Crazy I know. I really wanted to use a berry icing though, the rich colour smushed up berries provide is glorious!
I ended up making the lemon and
recipe I did this time last year. Probably because it is blueberry season once again (funny how those things are annual). However this time I doubled the recipe, saved most of the blueberries for the top and made it a two layer thing. Oh and completely drowned it in berry icing and fresh cut flowers from the garden.
Cakes decorated with flowers seem to be very in vogue at the moment. If you can ignore the bugs that take shelter in the flowers from time to time it is really quite a visually effective way of decorating a cake. Varying colour, texture and size I would say is key.
Imperfection is also the new perfect, at least in my books anyway. I like things dripping over the sides and icing not being smooth. I purposely create swirls and spills when I ice my cakes now.
The icing I made for this I kind of lost track of how much icing sugar I put in so this is sort of a guesstimate. Sorry!
So go for it, make a colourful summer cake and see what decorative delights are waiting for you in your (or your neighbours!) garden!
Lemon and Blueberry Sour Cream Cake with Berry Frosting
Makes 2x20cm cake layers
250g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
3 cups self raising flour
Zest of 3 lemons
1/2 a punnet of blueberries
Berry icing
1/2 cup mixed berries (blueberries and raspberries), fresh or frozen
50g butter
5ish cups of icing sugar
up to the juice of 1 lemon
1/2 a punnet of blueberries to decorate
fresh flowers to decorate
Preaheat the oven to 180 degrees on bake and line and grease two 20cm sandwich tins.
Cream the butter for a minute before slowly pouring the sugar into the mixture. Cream together until light and fluffy. Mix in the lemon zest. Add each egg in beating well after each addition until it has become extra fluffy. Gently mix in the sour cream. Sieve in the flour and mix until just combined.
Split the mixture between the two tins and sprinkle over the half punnet of berries. Press the berries in slightly with a spatula.
Bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely before icing.
To make the icing, blitz the berries in a food processor (or chop them really finely with a knife). Cream the butter until its nice and loose then slowly add the icing sugar, alternating cups of icing with spoonfuls of berries and squeezes of lemon juice. Keep beating and adding everything until the consistency reaches your taste and all the berries have been added. I like my icing quick think so I can spread it nice and thickly.
Once the cakes are cool, figure out which cake would be the best top and base. Spread about a third of the icing on the base cake then place the second cake on top. Spread the rest of the icing over the top cake. Sprinkle over the berries around the edge then fill in the centre with freshly cut flowers.
Enjoy!!
