Two of your 5-a-day, surely...

I have bought a lot of blueberries recently, as they've been at a really good price at my local Lidl store.  Of course, that's not the only reason - they're also delicious, really good for you and mess-free.  And we all love them!  At least, we all did, until we ate our fill (and by we, I mean the rest of The Team).  So I'm going to stop buying them for now, and use them in things other than just cereal and yoghurt.

And so to the cake...

I saw this recipe Good to know, which is a suprisingly useful website that I rarely visit.  But I have signed up to various newsletters so get the info after all.  Anyway, the recipe is for Lemon & Blueberry Swirl Cake, to be made in a loaf tin or 20cm/8" round tin.  I have both, or so I though, until I went on the hunt for the loaf tin.  I even texted Mr Becca at work (but he had no idea where it was) and made an impassioned plea on our Facebook page, to no avail.  So round it was to be. 

This was good though, because it would give me a chance to try out another new technique I learnt from my new American cake friends, one that help the cake to cook level, not with a bump in the centre.  Once the cake is ready to go in the oven (topped with flour-coated fresh berries (so they don't sink), rather than jam in this case), wrap it in tin-foil coated wet paper towels.  Seriously.

So, to make the wrapper you lay out enough length of aluminium foil to go around the cake tin.  Then dampen some paper towel and lay it on the foil, like so

Fold in from the long edges, until it is the width of your cake tin's depth.

Then wrap it around your cake tin with the unbaked mix, and pop it into the oven.  This method keeps the edges of your cake cooler, so they don't bake so quickly.  In this way you stop the centre rising, because it is still baking and needs to expand. 

And if all goes well, your cake should look like this - fairly flat.

And because you flour-coated your blueberries, they haven't sunk (hooray!!) so your cut cake looks this tasty...