Recipe: Lemon & Blueberry Madeira Cake

Hello and welcome to my new Internet connection! I’m so happy to be properly back online because I’ve really missed my little blog – and you guys, of course!
One of the things I’m loving about having my own house is being able to bake lots again – so expect plenty of cake-related posts. This was actually a birthday cake for my boyfriend’s youngest daughter, but I’m a strong believer that you don’t need a special occasion to eat cake. You don’t have to add the lemon buttercream but it went down pretty well here!

For the cake:
180g Butter, softened
185g Caster sugar
3 eggs
165g Self-raising flour
1tsp Lemon juice
100g Frozen blueberries
For the buttercream:
50g Butter, softened
150g Icing sugar, sifted
2tsp Lemon juice
A few drops yellow food colouring (optional)

Preheat the oven to 160° (Gas 2½). Grease and dust with flour a deep 7” cake tin.

In a bowl or a food mixer, cream together the butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Don’t panic if the mixture looks like it’s starting to curdle.

Fold in the flour and lemon juice until just combined, then add the blueberries and stir to distribute them. (You could replace the blueberries with raisins, glacé cherries, raspberries, chopped apple... Or leave them out altogether for a plain Madeira cake)

Transfer to the prepared cake tin, smooth the top, and bake for one hour, or until the cake is springy when pressed and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool on a wire rack whilst you make the buttercream. Start by beating the butter until soft, then add the icing sugar and lemon juice, and beat until combined. Beat in the food colouring, if using.

Spread over the top of the cooled cake. I decorated with some of the sugar roses and butterflies I won from Emma’s giveaway, and we served it with more blueberries and vanilla ice-cream.
And there you go, job's a good'un! I hope your Madeira cakes are as much of a success as mine has been, do let me know if you make it and how you get on! xo