Blueberry and lemon cake squares

delicious. tips

1. For extra flavour, gently heat the juice of 2 lemons with 2 tbsp caster sugar in a pan, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. When the sponge is cooked, turn it out onto a wire rack and pierce the surface with a skewer, then pour over the hot syrup. Cool, then continue with step 4.

   Incorporating citrus zest into your cake mixture adds another dimension to the finished bake. Lemon is the obvious choice for this recipe as it works perfectly with the blueberries, but experiment with lime and orange zest, too.

   Don’t feel you can’t alter the recipe to include your favourite berries or whatever fruit is in season. These squares are just as flavoursome if you use ripe blackberries or raspberries instead of blueberries.

2. You can freeze the cooked and cooled cake, then defrost before icing.

3. If the butter is too cold and firm when you add it to the mixing bowl it won’t blend with the other ingredients properly, leaving you with a lumpy cake batter. To soften the butter, heat it in the microwave on low for 30 seconds. Alternatively, dice it, put it in a bowl of lukewarm water and set aside for 2 minutes, then drain and pat the butter dry.