Mangia Mondays:: Blueberry Lemon Cake

Welcome to Mangia Mondays, a weekly food blog hop I co-host with the sweet Kristin of Delightfully Dowling.  We'd love for you to participate!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed Easter with your family if you celebrate it!

We hosted both sides of our families for a brunch and were so glad to have everyone together.  While I never quite get to everything I want to accomplish before hosting an event like this, the 19 family members that joined us were more than gracious to make do with our half-finished house and we are so grateful for all of them!  So what if I couldn't find time to hang curtains in the dining room or make a centerpiece for the table??  As the years go on I realize how truly inconsequential those things are in the scheme of life.  I could have finished them up if I wanted to miss time with our family visiting from New York or skipped my son's opening day of baseball, and that wasn't going to happen.

At 40 I've finally come to the conclusion that as long as the food is good, my house is {mostly} clean, and everyone has a place to sit, we're good to go!  Whether the curtains are hung or not is not going to make or break the day for any of our guests.  A stressed out and grumpy hostess, on the other hand, just might!  And who can be grumpy with these cute munchkins around??

{Thanks to my sister-in-law Jen for being the photographer yesterday!}

Although I completely failed to bring you any Easter recipes before the actual holiday, a lot of the things we enjoyed yesterday would be perfect for a Mother's Day celebration so I'll be posting them over the course of April, starting with this pretty and moist Blueberry Lemon Cake from Martha Stewart.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus 1 teaspoon for blueberries & zest

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup granulated white sugar

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

2 cups blueberries

2 cups grated lemon zest

nonstick baking spray, for pan

confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.  

In a bowl, whisk 2 1/2 cups flour with baking powder and salt, set aside.

Cream butter and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy.  

Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated.  

Beat in vanilla.  

Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions of sour cream.

Toss blueberries and lemon zest with remaining teaspoon of flour; gently fold into batter.  

Coat a 12-cup nonstick Bundt pan with baking spray.  

Spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake cake on bottom rack of oven until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 60-70 minutes.  

Cool in pan 20 minutes.  Invert onto rack; cool completely.

Dust with confectioner's sugar right before serving.

This pound-like cake is perfect for a brunch or a dessert.  Martha does not disappoint!

Now your turn!  Link on up any kind of food or kitchen inspiration and share your awesomeness!

And before you go:  this month's Before & Afters is off to a quiet start (did all of our new years resolutions fizzle out?  I know a few of mine did!).  I'd love for you to use this party as a way to motivate, and encourage you to join the party!  You are invited to comment about or link up a blog post about any kind of project you want to accomplish in the month of April - a new food you want to make, health plan, home renovations, improving your photography skills - anything goes.  Come on back on the last Friday of the month (4/27) and share your project "after"!  Visit this post to join.

Thanks for visiting today - wishing you a happy week ahead!