Blueberry Cake

Tacoma's Tuesday afternoon farmers market was a goldmine! It yielded a beautiful bounty of brightly colored berries, tempting tomatoes, and plenty of tiny pretty potatoes. We brought home blueberries, of course, fingerling potatoes--of which the name grossed out J., and other assorted goodies. Bacon flavored hummus by Sound Bites was claimed by me, and a delicious creamy honey lemon goat cheese was claimed by J. He LOVES goat cheese! He's expressed his affinity for it before, but the honey lemon combo was what won his heart and tummy over. I'm slowly learning to appreciate it, so I give him a 'cheesy gold star'. When we saw the berry stand, he quickly spotted the berries and loudly declared, 'we get these, mama, for my blueberry breakfast cake.' How could anyone resist those beautiful brown eyes, the quick thinking, and little hands holding a half pint of breathtaking blueberries?

That night I made his blueberry breakfast cake. It really is an anytime cake.

It's simple to prepare and quite unpretentious. It's not too sweet, has fruit, and I so do not feel guilty for serving this for breakfast with a cup of milk! Perfect!

Blueberry Cake

adapted from Taste of Home

1/3 unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon juice, orange juice works well
1 teaspoon zest

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt

8 ounces sour cream

1 cup blueberries, preferably fresh

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep pan of choice with a light coating of cooking spray or butter.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar and zest, until well incorporated and aromatic. Add butter and combine to sugar mixture. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
Add whisked flour mixture, alternately adding sour cream.

At this point, the cake batter is super thick. Evenly spread batter into pan.

Very gently, fold in blueberries.

(I found it was easier this way, instead of risking blueberry bleed in the transfer of the batter.)

Bake for about 40-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Baking time may need to be altered depending on size of pan.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Allow cake to cool completely. Dust with confectioners sugar

* The original recipe was a lowfat lackluster caloric waste. Using whole eggs, regular sour cream, and adding the zest and juice gave it a boost in flavor and visual appeal--a fluffy and tasty well risen cake.

* I have tried both lemon and orange juice/zest. Lemon was my favorite.

* I 've also tried frozen berries and it was a relative disaster. The frozen berries made the cake very dense and had a tendency to fiercely stick together.

Good Morning!

"Mama, my tummy is hungry for blueberry muffins with sprinkles".
Good morning to you too, my little one! What a lovely wake up call at 5:43am. A request for blueberry muffins with sprinkles...SPRINKLES? I know many who love the look of sprinkles, but I do not do sprinkles. I don't have any sprinkles. Where did he get the idea for sprinkles?

After my first cup of coffee and halfway into the muffin batter, I asked my child, 'what sprinkles do you want on your muffins, honey?' He calmly replied, 'the white ones, the crumbs ones. I like crumbs, mama.'
Now that made more sense, a crumb topping. Kinda sophisticated for a 4 year old, if you ask me. I have not made a blueberry muffin with crumb topping. Pumpkin, cinnamon, apple muffins, yes...blueberry, no. I quickly filtered thru my recipes, both hard copy and bookmarked.

Finally, I settled on a light slightly crunchy crumb topping. The end product, a wonderfully aromatic way to say, 'good morning' as well as a fluffy, tasty, pretty blueberry muffin. I knew it was a hit when I heard, 'I love my mama's muffins!'
What a way to start the day!

I found this wonderful recipe for blueberry muffins about 2 years ago at simplyrecipes.com. I halved the recipe, which yielded 12 standard sized muffins, and used frozen lemon zest. ( I find it so very painful to throw away lemon, lime, and orange peels away....all those precious oils can't be wasted! It's sacrilege) The recipe was practically followed as written. It is a solid recipe!

*I must add that you must make sure NOT to over mix batter and make sure your baking powder has not expired--6 months maximum from opening date.
I can guarantee you, you will have inedible blueberry scented bricks.

Blueberry Muffins
simplyrecipes.com
(posted as halved from the original)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
3/4 cup plain yogurt ( I used whole milk plain yogurt)
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

3/4 cup blueberries
1/2 tablespoon flour ( if using defrosted frozen blueberries)

"Sprinkles"/Crumb Topping:

Martha Stewart Living, May 2009

2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 - 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
pinch of salt

Adjust the oven rack to the middle part of the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F.

Crumbs:
In a medium bowl stir sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add cold butter using fingertips, fork, or pastry blender. Manipulate mix until it resembles crumbs. Set aside.
(You may need to add more flour, depending on weather/moisture, and temperature)

Muffins:
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, and lemon zest beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one.

Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. (At this point your batter will look fluffy)

Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat.

Fold in the berries.
If you are using frozen berries, defrost them first, drain the excess liquid, and then coat them in a light dusting of flour. *

Use a standard 12-muffin muffin pan. Coat each muffin cup lightly with olive oil or grapeseed oil using a pastry brush, or with a little butter. Or use one of those convenient vegetable oil sprays.**
Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups, as with crumb topping. Bake until muffins and topping are a light golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick to make sure the center of the muffins are done.
Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin and serve slightly warm.

*I used frozen berries. I did not rinse or flour, but rather quickly folded in the berries to prevent them from sticking to eachother and to prevent them from wanting to sink to the bottom.

**I used paper muffin liners and sprayed the inside of the liner