Blueberry, almond and lemon cake

 

 
Blueberries were bountiful. Saturday I was going to the Blue Mountains. I snaffled Simple from the library. All signs pointed to me making this cake. Miraculously, my apartment managed to stay cool enough for me to bake on the rogue 35 degree day last Friday. It was fractionally cooler on the weekend, and cooler still up in the mountains. Cake felt like a good reward for surviving the heat, and the trip out of town in which we crossed the Harbour Bridge twice by heeding Google and not instinct.



This is a full-size version of the little lemon, almond and blueberry teacakes from Sweet and it's every bit as good - lemony, nutty and bursting with berries. It's hard to compete with nature - especially when the bush is in bloom with waratahs - but this was definitely a highlight of the day.

Fridge cake

Yotam Ottolenghi has a new book! I don't own it (yet) but my friend Joanna does and I recently spent a pleasurable couple of hours at her place pawing through its pages. As you might imagine, there is so much great stuff in there - Joanna made me the Chicken Marbella, which was amazing - and it's all geared towards simplicity. This cake eschews ovens entirely and constructs a spectacular sweet from the bits and bobs we have in our store cupboards: a partial packet of plain biscuits leftover from making a cheesecake base ages ago, and assorted dried fruit and nuts (whatever you have lying around) are mixed together with some melted chocolate, butter and golden syrup, spread in a tray, stuck in the fridge and that's it. The hardest part is having to wait the couple of hours til it's set to tuck in.

Rhubarb and almond galette

I never had rhubarb when I was growing up. My father recently remarked to me, when I served him some, that his distinct memory of eating it was feeling like his teeth had been stripped, which could have accounted for my mother striking it from the family repertoire. My guess is that he had been served it without sugar, which mellows out its squeaky sourness and transforms it into a sticky, syrupy, radiantly rosy delight. It's not often you get such strident red in fruit, at least not one that retains its shape in baking: strawberries and raspberries dissolve into a gloopy (but delicious) mess and tomatoes - though a fruit - don't hold much dessert appeal. This recipe - from Alison Roman's Instagram phenomenon of a cookbook - Dining In, showcases the very best of this fruit, which is, incidentally, a vegetable. Galettes are great - basically a pie that requires no top crust, crimping or special tin to bake in. What's more, their appearance is actually enhanced by imperfection - the pastry simply rolled out then pulled up and over the rhubarb, which rightfully claims centre stage.

Pear tart

By and large I cannot be bothered with pastry. It's all to do with the rolling out really. The flour that goes everywhere. The dough that does not spread in a perfect circle, or any sort of circle at all. So I was excited to come across this recipe for a tart in which the pastry is just pressed with your fingers into the tin, baked for a bit, then packed with pear slices and a filling of butter, sugar and eggs that transforms in the oven into a silky, sweet custard. In many ways it's like the winter equivalent of Nora Ephron's peach pie - easy to make, even easier to eat. I took a couple of slices on a walk last weekend with my cousin, where they were enjoyed with a view of the harbour... as well as by the kookaburra who swooped and snaffled the last bite.

Blood orange and walnut cakes

I was unbelievably excited to come across a bounty of blood oranges in the imperfect pick section (there is a special place in my heart for wonky produce) of my fruit and veg store last week. But the thrill of the find fast faded when I remembered that previous excursions into baking with blood oranges had ended in disappointment as their stunning colour is never replicated in the end product. At best you end up with something that just looks like you'd used regular oranges, at worst, baked goods the unappetising shade of a Band-Aid. So I scoured the internet searching for a recipe that promised to preserve that glorious kaleidoscope of red, pink and orange. 

I'd had some success before, with this upside-down cake. Clearly the key is keeping slices intact, so as to showcase the spectacular colour of the fruit in all its glory. This recipe for blood orange and walnut cakes, from Anneka Manning, uses a similar technique but goes a simple step further by first poaching the orange slices in a sugar syrup, which seems to even intensify the colour. The bright slices fit neatly into the bottoms of a muffin tin, the batter - ground walnuts, olive oil, sugar and the zest and flesh of a blood orange bound with a bit of flour - is dolloped on top and twenty minutes later, you have a dairy-free dessert (that can be augmented with ice-cream), an easily transportable treat and something to marvel at: sublime imperfection.

Blood orange and walnut cakes
Adapted from a recipe by Anneka Manning, via SBS Food 

Once the oranges are out of the sugar syrup, you could return the saucepan to the heat and boil the syrup five minutes longer til it's thickened then brush this on the cakes once they come out of the oven. I would have done this but I took my eye off the ball and burned my syrup so decided to do without - to no ill effect so if you can't be bothered, know that these are brilliant just as below.

Cake

75 g walnuts, toasted
1 blood orange
220 g (1 cup) sugar
100 ml olive oil, plus extra to grease
2 eggs, at room temperature
150 g (1 cup) self-raising flour (or 1 cup plain flour and 2 tsp baking powder)
cream or ice-cream, to serve, optional

Blood orange topping

220 g (1 cup) sugar
185 ml (¾ cup) water
2 small thin-skinned blood oranges (about 160 g each), thinly sliced (you need at least 12 slices)

Preheat oven to 190°C (170°C fan-forced). Grease a 12-hole 80ml (⅓ cup) muffin tin with extra olive oil.

To make the blood orange topping, combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the orange slices and bring to a simmer. Simmer over medium-low heat, without stirring, for 10-15 minutes or until the rind become translucent but the flesh is still intact. Carefully remove the orange slices and place a slice in the bottom of each of the greased muffin holes to line the base.

To make the cake, blitz the walnuts in the bowl of a food processor until finely ground. Zest the blood orange, then use a small sharp knife to remove the white pith. Roughly chop the flesh and discard any seeds. Place the orange rind and flesh, sugar, olive oil and eggs in the food processor with the ground walnuts and process until well combined. Transfer to a bowl and fold in the flour.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin pans over the orange slices. Bake in for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean. 

Remove from the oven and set aside for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack.

Moroccan-spiced tea loaf

Once a year, in December, I make fruitcake. It's my grandmother's recipe. In my family, it was first made by her, then by my mother, now by me, and mainly for my dad, who's been eating it at Christmas for pretty well all of his life. It requires a truck load of dried fruit, soaking it liberally in booze, and a sleep after eating a slice. Sometimes, in seasons other than summer, I have a craving for fruitcake but just thinking about what making it entails - a trip to the supermarket, an overnight soaking of fruit, an enormous cake that takes weeks to get through - is enough to quell that desire... or at least it was until I came across this recipe in the newspaper last weekend.

Miraculously, this is a fruitcake in loaf form that can be whipped up semi-spontaneously (granted you still need to a trip to the supermarket and to soak the dried fruit but ingeniously, in hot tea rather than alcohol), contains only one egg, and no dairy at all. I was dubious, at first thinking there must have been a typo in the recipe, but no. It works wonderfully. The resultant loaf is rich and fruity, warm with spice, and scrumptious sliced thickly and slathered in butter. My grandmother would certainly approve, even if she might swap the unfamiliar Moroccan spice for something more standard like cinnamon, and write it up in her recipe book as Fast Fruitcake.

Welsh cakes

Once upon a time, I went to Wales. Well, it was May to be precise but the faraway is for its fairytale feel. My memories are of lush green, soft sun and sea mist. There were single lane roads (taken up with travelling tractors), and leeks on toast and Sunday roasts and... Welsh cakes. They were everywhere in Cardiff and the countryside - in specialty shops, in supermarkets, pubs and road side stalls. Eaten equally by builders, children and toffs in tearooms, there's something charmingly democratic about the Welsh cake.

Like a cross between a scone and a pikelet, Welsh cakes are a friendly tea-time treat. The traditional type are studded with sultanas, but you can use whatever you like - chocolate chips, orange zest, or any sort of dried fruit... Easy to whip up at short notice, these will keep in a tin to sustain you through a week of school lunches, a month of middle of the night football matches, or indeed, just morning tea.

Ciambellone

Sometimes I stray across a recipe that I'm moved to make straight away. Such was the case last week when the ever-reliable Smitten Kitchen published a recipe for an Italian tea cake I'd never heard of called ciambellone. I have no idea really how to pronounce this but in my head it sounds like cymbals being smashed together as in look and taste that's its effect. Further cause for celebration - it's a one bowl affair, oil-based (so no melting or creaming of butter) and I had almost all of the ingredients already, including (as a bonus) eggs from my Dad's chooks he'd brought with him in his carry-on luggage for a weekend visit. We'd planned a drive and no road trip is complete without a thermos and a treat to have with it. We had ours at a point in a park looking out at endless water. And again, back at home, for afternoon tea.

Cardamom crumb cake

When is it acceptable to eat cake for breakfast? 
a) when it's your birthday
b) when in Rome (or more literally, for me, in Stanwell Park, where I frequently stay with friends who strongly believe that cake is a legitimate breakfast food)
c) when the cake in question contains cardamom, walnuts, coffee and orange zest, all of which can be found in pastries traditionally eaten in the morning
d) when you are planning to get up at 4am for the next month to watch the World Cup and need some extra incentive to exit your very warm bed

The answer for me, obviously, is all of the above. But with the World Cup approaching, I've been stashing treats in the freezer like a manic squirrel. Because you really do want something in your stomach to help you wake up when you set your alarm for the early hours - nothing too intensely sweet for first thing, just a little morsel to comfort you in the cold. This fits the brief nicely - cardamom, coffee, and sweet orange cake topped with a nubbly, buttery walnut crumb. It's good eaten warm, whether freshly baked (and studying the form guide) or reheated (straight from the freezer to the oven) for kick off.

Elderflower, lemon and mascarpone cake

I've been away from my oven for the last month and haven't been baking but one sunny Saturday in Glasgow, staying with a friend, we went all out for the Royal Wedding. Neither of us are monarchists by any means (though my Princess Diana scrapbook from childhood would tell a different story) but it was impossible not to get caught up in a cultural moment that really did capture the public imagination, even in anti-England Scotland. My contribution to our high tea - in addition to scones - was a stab at the bride and groom's chosen cake - lemon and elderflower. While I couldn't compete with elderflowers harvested at the Queen's estate in Sandringham or the 200 Sicilian lemons reportedly flown in for the occasion, I made do with the very best M&S had to offer, cake tins that didn't fit the brief (see recipe note below), a lack of kitchen scales and an unfamiliar oven and it was still spectacular. For all of you who've purchased a bottle of elderflower cordial from IKEA and haven't got around to using it yet, here's your excuse. Other than that particular ingredient, the cake itself is very simple. All the usual suspects - butter, sugar, flour and eggs - beaten into a batter, baked in two tins, each cake cut in half to form four layers, each layer drizzled with sweet syrup, then the whole lot sandwiched together with elderflower-infused icing. The end result is light and summery, and altogether elegant. The two flavours - the delicate floral and the bright citrus blend together beautifully. Not your traditional wedding cake but then this was not your traditional royal wedding. And all the more delicious because of it. Long live elderflower and lemon.

Elderflower, lemon and mascarpone cake
Adapted from a recipe by Cygnet Kitchen

The original recipe recommends wrapping the cakes in clingfilm (once cooled) and freezing for ten minutes to make them easier to cut. I skipped this step as I was less concerned with perfection (read: lazy) and it turned out just fine but if you want to do things more professionally, then this seems like a good tip. Ideally, two six inch cake tins are what you want for this but I only had access to eight inch ones. The layers were slightly thinner but the cooking time was the same.



Cake
220g unsalted butter, softened, plus a little extra to grease the tins
220g caster (superfine) sugar
zest of 1 lemon
4 eggs (weighing a total of 220g in their shells), lightly beaten
220g self raising four, sifted
pinch of salt
3-4 tablespoons undiluted elderflower cordial

Lemon & elderflower syrup
freshly squeezed juice of ½ lemon
100ml undiluted elderflower cordial
2 tablespoons caster (superfine) sugar 

Icing
500g mascarpone
200ml double cream
3 tablespoons undiluted elderflower cordial
250g icing sugar, sifted to remove any lumps

 
Pre-heat the oven to 160 deg C. 

Grease and line two cake tins (see recipe note above).

Beat butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten egg, a little at a time, beating well in between each addition.

Gently fold in the sifted flour and salt, adding enough undiluted cordial (3-4 tablespoons) to create a dropping consistency ( the mixture should drop off a spoon when lightly tapped). Divide the batter between the two tins.

Put in both tins on the middle shelf of the pre-heated oven and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cakes comes out clean.

Leave in the tins to cool for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the syrup by combining the 100ml undiluted elderflower cordial, lemon juice and sugar in a bowl.

Then make the icing by whisking the mascarpone, 3 tablespoons undiluted elderflower cordial, double cream and icing sugar together until thick and smooth.  

Once cakes are cooled completely, use a bread knife level the tops of the cakes if necessary and cut each cake in half evenly. With a pastry brush, brush the syrup on the cut side of each layer (or just drizzle it on with a spoon). 

Place the base of one of the cakes on a plate or cake stand and spread with mascarpone icing. Add the next layer cut side down. Repeat with remaining layers, ensuring that the top layer is placed cut side down. For a 'naked' look, thinly spread the rest of the icing thinly around the sides of the cake and then add on the top a thicker layer.

Spice cake

As I get older I have a greater appreciation for simple cakes - the sort that wouldn't turn a head in a display case beside chocolate extravaganzas, towering layers of cream, or pretty pastel citrus showstoppers. These runners-up in the great beauty contest of the cake world are homely to say the least but what they lack in looks they more than make up for in flavour. This simple spice cake from Sweet is case in point, its boring brown exterior belying its complexity. Each bite contains so many different tastes - caramel from the brown sugar, tang from the sour cream, zing from the orange zest and peppery punch of mixed spice to round things off. Plain is perfect.

Spelt orange cake

I've had my head down with a deadline and haven't been baking, but last Thursday I felt an irresistible pull towards my KitchenAid mixer. For my birthday recently, some good friends gifted me not one, not two, but three Scandinavian cookbooks. In the interests of hygge, it seemed necessary to step away from the laptop and make a cake. I couldn't take too much time off so this recipe jumped out immediately as both simple and comforting.

I have a soft spot for orange cakes. This one adds a wholesome element by cutting the pale sweetness of the citrus with the grainy goodness of spelt flour. All the things you love about orange cake. And more. Highly recommended for anyone with a baking itch that needs to be scratched - hygge in a hurry.

Coconut, almond and blueberry cake

I love it when friends come to stay. In the interests of repeat business, I usually ask them what sort of cake they'd like for their arrival, offering a selection of a few I've had bookmarked. This is how I came to make this, the latest in my Ottolenghi-athon. Modest but moreish, its mixture of nuts, berries and coconut is intensely satisfying. 

We had ours with milky tea and memories and semi-delusional conversation about a shack in the woods we hope to co-own one day. It was delicious. I think she'll be back.

 

Waffles!

When I was a kid, my brother and I would get up early on Saturday morning and make waffles. It was a team effort. One of us measured flour, sugar, and milk, the other separated eggs. One of us melted butter, and the other took the bowl of egg whites out the front door and up the stairs to the footpath outside our house to noisily beat them into stiff peaks. All this was in the interest of keeping our parents asleep, which was in the interest of us being able to watch TV until they woke up and normal rules of the house resumed. But until then, in those dark early hours of the weekend, our life was a paradise of waffles and cartoons so it paid to keep things quiet. I'm pretty sure the electric waffle iron we had was something my grandfather won at golf. Certainly my mother would never have purchased anything so frivolous. Plus, she considered pancakes and waffles a bit déclassé, preferring instead thin, lacy crêpes. Not me! I'll take fat, fluffy and unrefined any day of the week.

My more recent waffle memories are from a road trip I did with my dad a few years ago, in the American south. We fell in love with a fast food chain called The Waffle House, whose cheery yellow sign seemed to greet us from whatever highway we travelled or motel we ended up in. Quite frequently, we'd begin or end each day with a stop there, and one of us would always get waffles. Look at us. See. We look happy. That's what waffles do to you.

To this end I asked my dad on a recent trip down to see me if he could bring the waffle iron. Not the electric one - that died long ago, in a cloud of black, acrid smoke - but one of my grandmother's old ones that had been relegated to my parents' camping kit. I don't remember Mum and Dad ever using them, nor does my father ever remember his mother - who he inherited them from - using them in her lifetime. It's entirely possible she bought them as kitchen accessories as they're so pretty with their jaunty red wooden handles, and my grandmother did love a theme in her kitchens. Anyway, Dad duly packed it in his suitcase and brought it down and one Saturday not so long ago, I whipped up some waffles. For old times' sake. For my family. And our history of waffles.

Nora Ephron's peach pie

Nora Ephron was a writer. Though she wasn't a food writer, all of her work, in one way or another, features food - from her screen adaptation of Julie and Julia (about how Julia Child became Julia Child), to perhaps her most-well known script When Harry Met Sally (whose most memorable scene takes place in Katz's Deli) to an early novel of hers I read just a few weeks ago, titled - memorably, perfectly - Heartburn. The book is the account of a marriage ending. Its heroine is a food writer who discovers her Washington journalist husband is having an affair while she is pregnant with their second child. It's funny, it's heartbreaking, it has recipes. Just like life.

To all those people who think making pie is hard (and that includes me), this recipe is for you. It's so simple, it's not even written in recipe form in the book, just unfolds in a few sentences. And in actuality, it really is that easy. No need for rolling pins, resting times, or chopping more than three pieces of fruit, it really is a marvel. Ephron's heroine makes hers at a lake house in West Virginia over summer, a time you're so hot and lazy you really can't be bothered to cook at all. It's the sort of thing that is perfect holiday house food - no need for fancy ingredients, or heavy reliance on an unfamiliar oven. The crust is crisp and buttery, the filling oozy and extravagant with the juicy sweetness of ripe peaches. Nora knows her stuff.

Heartburn is said to be a thinly veiled account of the end of Ephron's own marriage - to Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein, memorably portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in All The President's Men. Heartburn itself was made into a film in 1986, with Meryl Steep and Jack Nicholson, and is every bit as delicious as this pie. 

Though she'd achieved so much in her career, Nora Ephron died too soon in 2012. She is survived by her husband, writer/producer Nick Pileggi, and her two sons, Jacob and Max. In addition to her screenplays and novels, she wrote a lot of essays. In one - much earlier in her life - she reflected on dying and, as ever, came back to food. The New York Times included it in her obituary of June 26, 2012:

Ms. Ephron’s collection “I Remember Nothing” concludes with two lists, one of things she says she won’t miss and one of things she will. Among the “won’t miss” items are dry skin, Clarence Thomas, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and panels on “Women in Film.” The other list, of the things she will miss, begins with “my kids” and “Nick” and ends this way:

“Taking a bath

Coming over the bridge to Manhattan

Pie.”

Nora Ephron's peach pie
From Heartburn by Nora Ephron, first published in 1983

I am going to just print the recipe exactly as it appears in the novel because it is perfect. A Cuisinart is a brand of food processor. Any will do. Only when transcribing the recipe did I see that it called for the peaches to be peeled. I didn't do that and was so pleased with my pie I couldn't imagine it could be any better. I'm sure Nora would approve of my minor (unconscious) adaptation.


Last summer they came to visit us in West Virginia and Julie and I spent a week perfecting the peach pie. We made ordinary peach pie, and deep dish peach pie, and blueberry and peach pie, but here is the best peach pie we made: Put 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup butter and 2 tablespoons sour cream into a Cuisinart and blend until they form a ball. Pat out into a buttered pie tin, and bake 10 minutes at 425°. Beat three egg yolks slightly and combine with 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and 1/3 cup sour cream. Pour over 3 peeled, sliced peaches arranged in the crust. Cover with foil. Reduce oven to 350° and bake 35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 10 minutes more, or until filling is set.

Banana, date and walnut loaf

I do not like banana. My mother claimed this is because she fed me too much of it as a baby. She had a lot of weird theories so I've no idea if this is in any way accurate but for whatever reason I've long steered clear of banana bread, banoffee anything or that "one ingredient" ice-cream people swear is just like the real thing but to me tastes only of its one ingredient - blended up frozen bananas. Blechhh. But I had this tin.

It was my grandmother's. I can't remember what she made in it. Possibly nothing in my lifetime. By the time I came along, she'd retired a lot of her repertoire and mostly stuck to scones. But I always remembered the tin, which Mum inherited - specifically having to fossick around it in the cluttered cupboard full of bakeware to get to the more regular round ones. But there comes a time in your life when you yearn for something different. Something cylindrical. Something showcasing what you've eschewed for an eternity. 

To say I've been converted would be a bit much. In truth, you can't taste the banana at all in this and for me, that's all to the good. What shines through strongly are the dates and the walnuts - caramel and crunch in one perfect mouthful. The banana binds it together, keeps it moist. It has its place and I wouldn't think of substituting it. Not when it works so well. Especially sliced thickly and slathered with butter.

Custard yo-yos with roasted rhubarb icing

Lately, I've been the lucky recipient of several batches of homemade biscuits. Just before leaving for holidays I was presented with some of Elizabeth's amazing shortbread. On arrival in Hobart, a jar of assorted Ottolenghi was waiting for me by my bed. Back in Sydney, the postman delivered a batch of biscotti sent at great expense and with much love from afar, and last weekend, my friend from Canberra came to stay bearing cinnamon meringue stars. So I hope the ones I made for Christmas gifts inspired the same warm feelings.

I made a few different sorts (including these and these) but the custard yo-yos with roasted rhubarb icing were the undisputed stars of the show: a creamy pink fruity filling sandwiched by two perfectly pale yellow cookies. The secret ingredient is custard powder, but if you don't have it, cornflour (cornstarch) will do just as well though your biscuits will be a little less yellow. The pastel palette is part of the appeal I think so if you can find custard powder (it should be readily available in any supermarket), it's worth the sub-$2 investment for the child-like delight those nursery colours inspire. I'll definitely be making them again. Next time, all for myself.

Lemon, blueberry and almond teacakes

It may have something to do with the season, but I have never embraced a cookbook as much as I have Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh's recently released Sweet. In Sydney, in late December, I made rhubarb yo-yos and orange and star anise shortbread as holiday gifts. A few days later, in Hobart, I collaborated with a friend (and fellow Ottolenghi disciple) on the rolled pavlova with blackberries and peaches for dessert on Christmas Day, and on a hot, sticky Brisbane afternoon just before new year, I whipped up these lemon, blueberry and almond teacakes with expert bakers Alice (10) and Emily (5) in their new kitchen in Fig Tree Pocket.

Well, to be honest, I really did nothing more than supervise, passing eggs to little hands to crack, reading from the recipe about what to add when and overseeing the distribution of blueberries in batter. Though these look fancy as fancy can be, they are super easy and super fun to make, and showcase the beautiful berries so plentiful at this time of year. You don't need any specialist equipment - they're made in a muffin tin and simply inverted and iced to make little cakes (genius!). Though they're not strictly gluten-free, you could easily make them so by substituting more almond meal for the very minimal amount of flour in the recipe. They're sweet, light and unbelievably good. This recipe makes twelve, which seems like a lot but having had one, you will almost certainly want another. Get in quick.

Lemon, blueberry and almond teacakes 
Adapted from a recipe in Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh

I'm sure you could swap the 45g of flour for the same amount of almond meal if you wanted to make this gluten-free - just make sure the baking powder and icing sugar you're using are gluten-free. Most are, but best to read the label, or check online.


190g unsalted butter, at room temperature
190g caster (superfine) sugar
finely grated zest of one lemon (1 teaspoon)
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
190g ground almonds
45g flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
60ml lemon juice
100g blueberries, plus 70g to garnish

icing
160g icing (confectioners') sugar
35ml lemon juice


Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Grease and flour all 12 holes of a muffin tin.

Beat butter, sugar and lemon zest together til light and creamy, then add eggs and ground almonds in three or four alternate batches. Fold in flour, salt and baking powder, then finally add the lemon juice. Spoon batter into the muffin moulds and divide the 100g of blueberries between them - pushing the berries down into the batter a bit.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until edges are golden and a skewer inserted into the middle of a cake comes out clean. Remove from oven, let cool in tin for ten minutes then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely, making sure they are sitting upside down (ie: smaller end on top).

Sift icing sugar into a bowl and add lemon juice til mixture is thick but pourable. Spoon icing over cakes and top with remaining blueberries.