Blackberry and Lemon Cakes

Hello again! Sorry it's been so long since I last posted but it has been a busy year. These were a rather impromptu bake after having been blackberry picking. I improvised a recipe for these because I've never been particularly experimental or adventurous with flavours and thought that lemon would make a good addition to the blackberries.

I started by making a basic cake mix using a tip I learned recently: After creaming the butter and sugar, gradually mix in the egg with a little flour to prevent the mixture from curdling. In other words, if the mix looks weird or porridge-like when mixing in the egg, add more flour (from the measured amount, not extra). To this cake mix, I then folded in 2 lemon zests and 1 1/2 handfuls of chopped blackberries. This wasn't really enough blackberry though so I would recommend 2 or more handfuls of blackberries. I then used an icecream scoop to divide the batter between the cupcake cases, a handy tip from the new episode of The Great British Bake Off, and baked them for about 18 minutes at 180 degrees c.

While baking, I made the lemon sauce/syrup/drizzle/topping (what do you call the lemon drizzle topping?) by mixing the juice of 2 lemons with 3 tbsp of caster sugar. While the cakes are still warm from the oven, poke holes with a fork and spoon on the lemon juice; approximately 2-3 tsp per cupcake. If you want the crystalised sugar effect on the top you can also sprinkle on more caster sugar. I then waited for them to cool and decorated with a piped drizzle of pink icing and a halved blackberry.

For an experimental bake, I was quite happy with my blackberry and lemon cakes although the flavours were not as prominent as I would have liked. I included an increased amount of blackberries in the recipe below, let me know how it works out :)

(Sorry about the poor quality picture, I had to use my phone instead of the camera)

Ingredients:

• 6oz butter
• 6oz caster sugar + 3tbsp for topping
• 6oz self raising flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 lemons
• 2 - 2 1/2 handfuls of blackberries + extra for decoration
• Icing and food colouring (if desired)