I made this cake for the birthday of a very dear colleague at work. I wanted to make something traditional, but not boring and in my opinion, you can never go wrong with lemon drizzle, but I wanted to do a twist on it, so this recipe was perfect. The mint drizzle was totally delicious. It was originally made in a loaf tin, but to jazz it up for a birthday, I used my heritage bundt tin. The edible flowers were from my garden, but I made the mistake of decorating the cake the night before and in the morning all the flowers had shrivelled so I had to pick some more and do it again.   The original recipe is from Delicious Magazine.

http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/blueberry-lemon-and-mint-drizzle-cake/

 

Ingredients

115g very soft butter, plus extra for greasing

25g fresh mint, leaves picked

250g fresh blueberries

Finely grated zest and juice of 1 large lemon

250g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

225g caster sugar

2 large free-range eggs

120ml whole milk

25g desiccated coconut

100g granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

White icing sugar and lemon juice

Edible flowers and the tips of mint sprigs

Directions

• Position a shelf in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 180°C/fan160°C/gas 4. Grease the heritage bundt baking tin.
• Finely chop about a quarter of the mint leaves (to yield 1 tablespoon). Put the blueberries into a bowl and stir in 1 teaspoon of the lemon juice and the chopped mint, then set aside. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
• Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and caster sugar together in a large mixing bowl for 5 minutes until pale and slightly fluffy. This will be a little harder than usual because of the high proportion of sugar, but it will eventually come together and become much paler in colour. Beat in the lemon zest. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding 1 tablespoon of the sifted flour with the second egg. Add the milk gradually, folding in large spoonfuls of the remaining flour until the mixture is smooth, then fold in the desiccated coconut.
• Spoon one-third of the cake mixture into the bottom of the prepared tin and scatter over one-third of the blueberries. Repeat twice more, ending with a layer of blueberries. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes away clean.
• While the cake is cooking, make the topping. Put the rest of the mint leaves and 2 tablespoons of the granulated sugar into a mortar or small bowl and pound with the pestle or the end of a rolling pin until it forms a bright green paste. Stir in the remaining lemon juice (about 3-4 tablespoons) and leave to infuse. When the cake comes out of the oven, leave it to cool for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, strain the minty lemon juice through a clean tea strainer into a bowl, pressing out as much of the juice as you can. Stir in the remaining granulated sugar.
• Spoon the minty lemon and sugar mixture over the cake and leave it to cool. Remove the cake from the tin, then sprinkle the top lightly with a little more sugar.
• Mix the icing sugar and the lemon juice together, until you get a consistency that can be piped. You can always add more icing sugar or lemon to get the right balance.
• Decorate by using a piping bag to pipe the icing sugar and lemon juice mixture down the ridges of the cake. Finish off by place the edible flowers and the tips of the mint springs in the ridges.