Blueberry Bundt Cake

Today is my dad’s birthday, so i decided to try out another cake recipe in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. All the recipes look delicious but the blueberry cake really caught my eye and I had never used a bundt pan before.

The recipe was really easy to follow, and it produces a big cake! 6 eggs are used in total and the shiny purple blueberries drift around the cake bursting and soaking the light sponge. To decorate it is dripped in cream cheese frosting, blueberries and lightly dusted with icing sugar.

The recipe:

What You Need: 350 g unsalted butter, 350 g caster sugar, 6 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 450g plain flour, 2 tbsp & 2 tsp baking powder, 280 ml soured cream, 250 g fresh blueberries, plus extra to dust.

Cream cheese frosting: 300 g icing sugar, sifted, 50 g unsalted butter, 125 g cream cheese

Preheat the oven to 170°C .

Grease and dust a 25 cm ring mould. Mix sugar and butter and cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time while mixing well, be sure to scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl. Beat in the vanilla extract, flour and baking powder until well mixed. Add the soured cream and mix well until everything is combined and the mixture is light and fluffy. Gently stir in the blueberries by hand until evenly dispersed. Pour the mixture into the ring mould and smooth over with a palette knife or a spatula. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, until golden brown. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the mould before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. When the cake is cold, cover the top and sides with Cream Cheese Frosting and decorate with more blueberries. Yum (^-^)

December Cook of the Month: Blueberry Tart

Decembers ‘Cook of the Month’ comes form the cookery book ‘The French Kitchen’ (2002, Doubleday, London) , by Joanne Harris and Fran Warde. Harris is also the author of Chocolat, so if you have read the book you can imagine how scrumptious and inviting the recipes, language and photos are. This book also does not disappoint with a chocolate section. The one recipe that did stand out for me was a Blueberry Tart, which in the book looks like it came straight out of boulangerie.

So i went and picked up some fresh blueberries from the city market yesterday. I would of had more blueberries in the tart if someone in the night didn’t eat them! But anyway, there was enough for what I want to do. What is great about this recipe is that so far this is the best pastry I have ever tried to make, Pâte Brisée. This is a nice light, buttery and flakey pastry which was so easy to work with, roll and bake.

The recipe was easy to follow but it can also be adapted for season and taste. This would be great to substitute the blueberries with blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries or even strawberries. I will also be using the Pâte Brisée recipe again for the future. You can find the recipe here or buy the book (it’s worth it). In the end it tasted great, was easy to make and I learnt something new… a perfect ‘Cook of the Month’.

“Serve cold, if you can wait.” (^-^)

A Pocket Full of Muffins

Today in an act of boredom I decided to try out a few muffin recipes. I had some left over bananas kicking around, so I thought I would use them up in a banana and cinnamon mix and another batch of blueberry.

Blueberry muffins spark a memory when I was a child. I was part of the Cubs (junior Scouts). I remember we were going on a camping trip and my mum had made some home baked blueberry muffins to take with me. Unfortunately  my younger brother got hungry and ate them all in the middle of the night… so this time they are all mine lol

The Blueberry

110g self raising flour
110g butter
65g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp baking powder, 200g  blueberries (I used dried, but you can use frozen or fresh), 50ml of milk.

Preheat oven at 200C

First cream the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, then sieve in the flour and baking powder, mixing it all together with a fork. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and add the eggs and milk. Mix vigourously with the fork until smooth and creamy, finally add the blueberries spoon into muffin cases and bake for 20-30mins (or golden brown).

Banana & Cinnamon

75g melted butter , 250g self-raising flour , 1 tsp baking powder , pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon , 115g golden caster sugar , 1 tsp vanilla extract , 2 large, ripe bananas (I think best when the skins are slightly brown and speckled), 2 eggs, 125ml milk

This recipe is a bit different to the blueberry. First melt the butter and mix with milk, eggs and vanilla, whisk and then stir in the bananas (mashed up nice and soft). Set this mixture aside and in a separate bowl sieve the flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon and lightly mix. Now with the flour mixture make a well in the middle and add the banana bowl. Vigourously stir with a fork until combined. Spoon into cases and bake for 20-25 mins.

In the end I am really pleased with both of these recipes. I decided to decorate  a few of the tops of the Banana muffins with vanilla icing and a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds for a seasonal twist.