The blueberry cake has become something of an infamous event between my good friend Hannah and I. One cold rather miserable day, I decided to host a tea party; scones, cakes, leaf tea, the lot. Though some would say this is a rather old fashioned concept, I opted for the quirky, cool take on tea. This blueberry cake was lurking in one of my old Good Food magazines so I thought I would test it out. I feel a bit of a fraud because it is the easiest thing to make and maybe doesn’t quite deserve the rapturous applause it received.  But, I suppose the proof is in the pudding and I trust Hannah’s judgement that it’s ‘Amazing‘:

• 175g soft butter
• 175g golden caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 142ml carton soured cream
• 3 x 125g punnets blueberries

Icing:

• 200g full fat cream cheese
• 100g icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to fan 160C/180C fan/gas 4.
2. Butter and line the base of a 22cm round cake tin with baking parchment.
3. Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla in a bowl. Beat until pale in colour and thoroughly mixed. Stir in 4 tbsp soured cream. Then fold in half the blueberries.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and level. Bake for 50 minutes until it springs back when lightly pressed.
5. Leave to cool then turn out onto a cooling rack.
6. Now make the icing. Beat the cream cheese (make sure it’s full fat otherwise it’s not as creamy and tends to go too runny), with the icing sugar and the remaining soured cream in a bowl until smooth and creamy. Spoon and spread over the top of the cooled cake. Scatter the top with the remaining blueberries.

Directions for use: Don those stretchy trousers, as once iced this cake is best eaten on the day…