Lemon, Mascarpone Drizzle Cake with Blueberries

This is my wonderful friend Anneliese from Rising to the Berry's recipe. You can find her fabulous blog at http://risingtotheberry.blogspot.com/ The recipe was recently posted in Good to Know Magazine.

         225g Stork (you can use the same quantity of softened unsalted butter if preferred)

• 225g caster sugar
• 225g self-raising flour
• 4 large eggs
• 2 level tsp baking powder
• 1tbsp milk
• Finely grated zest of one large lemon (I used two as I like mine very lemony)
• For the drizzle:
• 100g granulated sugar
• Juice of one large lemon

For the filling:

• 250g mascarpone
• 125g lemon curd
• I added a box of blueberries and made a little extra filling so I could pipe the lemon curd flavoured cheese on the top

1. Set your oven to 180°C/360°F/Gas Mark 4.
2. Now move your attention to greasing two 8 inch sandwich tins, then line the base of each tin with greaseproof paper. This has to be the most tedious part of baking (after washing up of course) but it needs to be done! To save time, I fold a large piece of greaseproof paper in half, draw around a tin, grab scissors and cut around the outline. This will give two circles for your effort! Now we can move on to the fun part of making the actual cake – yay!
3. We are using the easy peasy all in one method; I rarely use the creaming in method for fear of the dreaded curdle! Simply measure the Stork, sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, milk and lemon zest into your awaiting mixing bowl. A word of advice would be to take care when measuring in the baking powder. A rounded teaspoonful instead of a level one could result in a sunken cake which would, of course, be a bit disappointing.
4. When all of the cake ingredients are within the safety of your bowl, whisk until you have created a smooth mixture. This should take around one to two minutes if using an electric whisk. If you are using your own muscle power, then it will of course take a little longer!
5. Divide the suitably smooth mixture equally between your pre-prepared tins and level out. Place the tins straight into the warmth of the oven. The cakes should take between 25 and 30 minutes to cook, but check after 20 minutes. Don't open the oven door any earlier as this is another way to get a sunken cake. The sponges are ready once they are springy to the touch and the edges are coming away from the tins.
6. Leave the cakes to cool in the tins whilst you get on with making the zingy lemon drizzle. First of all, juice your lemon into a small bowl. Try warming the lemon in the microwave for a few seconds first; this helps to get as much juice out as possible. Tip the granulated sugar into the bowl to join the lemon juice and give it a good stir. Next you can spoon this delicious mixture over the two cakes (which are still sitting patiently in their tins) and leave to cool completely.
7. Once the cakes are finally cold you can extract them from the tins. Now all that is left to do is make the simple filling. Fold the lemon curd into the mascarpone. The joy of using mascarpone is that it is already at a beautifully thick spreading consistency - no whisking required! Sandwich the two cakes together with the ever so tasty lemony filling, then stand back to admire your work. Not for too long though – dive in, cut yourself a large slice and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Enjoy - you deserve it!