A cake for summer parties, when the sun is hot
and there are many mouths to feed.

a.k.a. going (almost) “full Martha Stewart”,
but with extra lemon and a zesty glaze,
to mitigate the Martha Stewart factor.

{ A Martha Stewart recipe, with a few tweaks }

Gather:
2.5 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

2.5 cups blueberries¹
Zest from 3 lemons (3 tbsp for the batter + 1 tbsp for the glaze)
1 extra tbsp plain flour

1 cup (2 sticks; about 220 g) butter – I used salted
1 cup white/caster sugar
1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
4 eggs (at room temp.)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream

Juice from 1 of your de-zested lemons
The last 1 tbsp of zest (above)
1.5 cups icing mixture or powdered sugar (maybe a little more)

A bit of extra butter and white/caster sugar, to prep the tin

Then:

1. Make sure you take the butter, eggs and sour cream out of the fridge about half an hour before you start, so they’re all at room temperature.²
2. Preheat the oven to 350ºF (176ºC) with one rack in the bottom position.³ Lightly butter/grease the inside of your bundt tin then sprinkle the extra white/caster sugar all over the buttered surface — this will help your cooked cake slip out all in one piece when it’s done.
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3. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt together. With a whisk or a fork is fine — no need to sift it. Set this aside.
4. Measure out the blueberries into another medium-sized bowl, add the grated lemon zest and 1 tbsp flour, then stir carefully with a large spoon til everything is evenly distributed and the berries are coated in flour.⁴ Set this aside too.
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5. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large bowl + beaters), cream together the butter and both sugars until it’s pale and fluffy.
6. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing on a slow speed until they’re all incorporated.
7. Add the vanilla. Mix to incorporate.
8. Start adding the flour mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time, alternating with a couple of tablespoons of the sour cream, until both are incorporated. Don’t over-mix. (And don’t worry too much if flour sprays everywhere.)
9. Turn off the mixer/beaters, and gently fold in the berries/zest, using a spatula or wooden spoon, until they’re evenly distributed through the batter. It should been spoonable and pretty clumpy.
10. Carefully spoon the batter into your prepped bundt tin, and smooth out the surface with a spatula.
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11. Bake on the lower shelf of your oven for about 60 minutes (rotating halfway through so it cooks evenly) or until a bamboo skewer inserted into the deepest part of the cake comes out clean, without gooey batter. It will feel quite dense and moist (that’s the sour cream) but as long as the skewer is clean, you’re good to go!
12. Remove the cake from the oven and let it sit in the tin on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes.
13. Put another cooling rack (or a plate, if you only have one rack) on top of the cake, and flip it over so it’s now right side up for the first time but don’t remove the tin. Let it sit there, inverted but still in the tin, for another 20 minutes.
14. The tin should now just lift straight off — voilà!
    
15. When the cake is completely cooled, whisk together the icing mixture/sugar, last 1 tbsp of zest and juice from one lemon, adding more sugar if you want a stiffer glaze.⁵
16. Drizzle (or pour) the glaze over the cooled cake.
17. Serve with sparkling cocktails on a sunny afternoon.
    

Notes:
¹About 1.5 pint-sized tubs, or maybe 3 small (Aussie-sized) punnets.
²Cold butter + cold eggs + cold sour cream will never incorporate properly — you’ll just end up with some coagulated wet greasy stuff.
³I set my unpredictable non-fan gas oven at 400ºF (just over 200ºC), so if you think your oven is a bit on the cool side, maybe do likewise. It takes a lot of heat to cook a bundt all the way through!
⁴This stops all the berries sinking to the bottom. An essential step.
⁵Note: You can prepare the glaze a day ahead and store it in a sealed container in the fridge. Just take it out about an hour before you’re ready to glaze/serve the cake and it should re-liquefy on its own. Also note: You shouldn’t need to sift the sugar — any lumps will dissolve in the lemon juice.