Women's Weekly Blackberry Lemon Cake

Wishing you a very happy 2016!  Oh my goodness, it's been over 7 months since I've updated my blog, how disgraceful!  I blame my boss for this... ok, not entirely because I'm a grown up and responsible for my own life, but he was promoted mid last year which meant my job got a lot busier. Not that it's a bad thing, but my primary focus was work and I was grumpy because life wasn't as balanced as I like it to be. It didn't help that I had a milestone birthday, but I spent a week at my favourite St Regis Singapore which made things a little better. So for 2016, I would like a more balanced year to have more time to make things.

I was chatting with my colleague SB about baking more and he requested a croquembouche and an opera cake ... he's been watching too many episodes of The Great British Bake Off ! I haven't baked for over a year so I picked this simple blackberry lemon cake from Women's Weekly's Indulgent Cakes book to ease back into baking rather than start with something so extravagant!

I shared this cake with my favourite boys (SB included) from work, and they gave it a thumbs up.  I even bought Tom & Jerry sandwich bags to store them in as I didn't think they would appreciate the Hello Kitty ones I have!

I thought the cake was a little too sweet so I would cut down on the sugar, and the texture was soft and crumbly. I added extra lemon zest (because I love my zester) and doubled the quantity of blackberries.