I am still on a mission to convince people that eating cake for breakfast is perfectly normal.

Especially in England, this is not the done thing  – not even on a birthday or another special occasion it seems. I remember being at a friend’s house for a leisurely Easter breakfast a few years ago and asking for a slice of the cake left over from the previous day’s afternoon tea and being told “But not for breakfast!” – and a look of shock and disgust stayed on my hosts faces for the next few minutes.

Well, I decided the best way to missionarize was by bringing cakes to work when it is someone’s birthday and present them their birthday cake as soon as they come in to the office in the hope we will cut into it before lunch, for a little brunch time treat.

Most recently it was Celia’s birthday and Celia is known for liking blueberries so it had to be a birthday cake with the little blue superfruits. With blueberries I would usually make muffins rather than cakes but I thought they might work nicely in a classic Victoria Sponge. It’s not a typical combination like the traditional strawberry Victoria sandwich cake but it went down a treat.

Despite the birthday girl trying to convince us the birthday cake should not be eaten before 4 o’clock, I am glad to say everyone else was having none of it and after we convinced her, everyone had a piece before noon…

For a Victoria Sponge with Blueberries you will need:

• 2 round 18cm/7” cake tins
• 175g butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 175g self-raising flour 
• 1 1/2 level tsp baking powder
• ca 4 Tbsp of damson jam (blackberry, black current might work equally well)
• 1 punnet of blueberries
• 1 small pot of whipping cream
• a sprinkle of icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees/ gas mark 4 and grease and line the base of the two sandwich tins.

Mix the flour with the baking powder and set aside.

In a bigger bowl cream the butter and sugar with a handheld whisk, then add one egg followed by a generous table spoon of the flour and whisk again, before repeating this with the other eggs and more flour, adding all the flour after the third egg.

Divide the batter evenly between the tins and level flat with the help of a spatula.

Bake for 25mins until the cakes are springy to the touch and a tooth pick inserted in the cake comes out clean (take them out as soon as this is the cake – don’t be tempted to brown them longer which would result in dry cakes!). Leave to cool in the tins for about 5 minutes then turn the cakes out, peel the parchment off and finish cooling on a wire rack.

In the meantime whisk up the whipping cream until it holds shape.

When the cakes are completely cool spread the top of one with jam and cover it with berries (the jam makes the cake more fruity and also stops the berries from rolling off), then spread the cream and sandwich the cakes together.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.