Tag Archives: blueberries

Weekend Baking: Blueberry Basil Bubble

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With some organic blueberries and a sweet, juicy organic nectarine, I made two bowls of simple summer bubble. Flavored with minced basil leaves and balsamic vinegar and sweetened with a touch of honey, the summer fruit bubbles and drips dark, sweet juice as it bakes under a blanket of butter, oatmeal, flour and brown sugar.

This has been my summer of basil. When one of my farmer friends at the market suggested I try planting my peppers, tomatoes and herbs in pots this year, I heeded his advice. I’m so glad I did. I’ve got two pots of healthy, green basil in my small garden. Lemon basil and cinnamon basil are planted in the ground and are doing very well.

Use any kind of basil you have on hand for this simple dessert that also works as breakfast. I used a mix of cinnamon and lemon basil. I think lemon thyme or orange thyme would offer lovely flavor in the absence of basil.

I wanted just two servings, baked in a couple of old restaurant bowls I found in an antique shop. This recipe can easily be doubled to fill a casserole dish.

Use the best balsamic vinegar you have. I stirred in some blueberry-infused balsamic I got at Vinaigrette in Minneapolis. I buy only local honey. Honey is the sweetest of the natural sweeteners and adds its own unique flavor.

Enjoy the weekend. Bubble up some sweet summer berries and stone fruit. Blueberry Basil Bubble is a blissful way to begin the day and a heavenly way to end it.

Blueberry Basil Bubble

  • 2 heaping cups (12 ounces) fresh blueberries, rinsed
  • 1 large nectarine or peach, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (I used blueberry balsamic)
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • a handful of basil leaves, minced
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons oats, quick or old-fashioned
  • 1/4 cup chilled butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a glass bowl, toss fruit with vinegar, honey and basil. Transfer to 2 greased (I used butter) oven-safe bowls or individual casserole dishes.

For topping, mix flour, salt, brown sugar and oats together. Cut chilled butter into small pieces. Use your clean fingers to work the butter into the dry ingredients to form a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle over fruit mixture in bowls.

Place bowls on aluminum foil-lined baking sheet. Bake in preheated 400-degree oven for 30 minutes. The juice thickens as it cools. Makes 2 servings. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tips from the cook

It helps to warm the honey just a bit in the microwave oven to make it easy to stir in and coat the fruit.

 

Blueberry Cake began as a muffin

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My friend, Lynn, rubs up with mosquito spray and grabs a bucket as she heads out each year at this time to pick wild blueberries. She’s been doing this for years, so it doesn’t take her long to pick enough of those small, sweet berries in her secret spot to make at least a couple of blueberry pies. And, she makes the world’s best pie crust. This year, she brought me a small pie that was perfect for my husband and I to share. We savored each bite of flaky crust that held her homemade wild blueberry pie filling. It was absolutely heavenly.

I don’t pick wild blueberries, except for the few that grow along my driveway. Too many bears, woodticks and mosquitoes to worry about when one is out in the woods picking berries. And, I don’t make pies. I make at least a few dozen of my favorite bluebery muffins each year at this time.

Today, I tried something a little different by baking a whole batch of my favorite blueberry muffin recipe in a springform pan to make a muffin cake.

I didn’t skimp on the berries. I used a full pint. I didn’t stir them into the batter as I would if I was making muffins. I sprinkled blueberries over the top of the batter after first tossing them with cinnamon and sugar.

The cake is fabulous when eaten while it is still warm from the oven. It makes a delightful morning cake with coffee or tea. And it makes a perfectly satisfying dessert cake with a scoop of homemade vanilla bean ice cream. I speak from experience!

Blueberry Muffin Cake

  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • 2 cups sugar, divided
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 pint fresh blueberries, rinsed
  • 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.

Using a spoon, mix butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, salt, flour amd baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan.

Toss blueberries with lemon juice in a large bowl. In another smaller bowl, mix remaining 1/2 cup sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Mix cinnamon-sugar with blueberries. Arrange blueberries over batter in pan. Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour or until a cake tester inserted into middle of cake comes out clean. Transfer to a wire racke and cool for 15 minutes. Remove the side of the pan. Serve cake warm or at room temperature. 8 servings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet or Savory, Blueberry Topping Goes Both Ways

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 Blueberries just might be my favorite summer berry. When I was growing up, I enjoyed the blueberry pies my grandma made. I’ve never been able to recreate that delicious pie. And, for that reason, I come up with all sorts of ways, other than in pie, to enjoy the plump blueberries of summer.

I think it was four summers ago, at about this time, that I went on my first camping/canoe trip at Lake of the Woods. A friend, who was also on the trip, sent me a recipe for a blueberry relish sometime before we were scheduled to take off. I made the relish for her and brought it to Laketrails Base Camp on Oak Island in Lake of the Woods in the Northwest Angle of Minnesota, our starting point. Our fellow paddlers enjoyed the savory blueberry topping with goat cheese on toasted slices of baguette as a start to our meal the night before the big adventure trip under a full moon. There were times on our week-long adventure that we wished we would have had more of that snack.

Today I made the Blueberry Topping again for the first time since that canoe trip under the full moon. Blueberries and red grapes are a great combination, both sweet and juicy with exquisite depth of flavor. I wouldn’t tamper with that combo at all. I did make a few changes to the recipe, adding a shallot and some lime zest. It was so good topping a very creamy goat brie on crunchy slices of toasted baguette. We also tried it with some mascarpone and decided it was like eating dessert. The remaining Sweet Savory Blueberry Topping  will get a new look ladled over premium vanilla ice cream. The sauce keeps well for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. I would love to try some over a traditional creamy cheesecake.

I’ll be making another batch of this topping, using minced jalapeno pepper and cilantro to replace the ginger and rosemary. I can just imagine how tasty it would be spooned over a brick of cream cheese and served with crackers.

It’s easy to pack up everything you need to serve this delightful appetizer or snack at a picnic. Just scoop Sweet Savory Blueberry Topping into a large jar with a tight-fitting lid and put it in the cooler with some goat cheese, cream cheese or mascarpone cheese. Slice up a baguette and toast the slices under the broiler. Transport them in a zip-top plastic bag or a cookie tin.

Blueberries sweet and blueberries savory — always a treat.

Sweet Savory Blueberry Topping

  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh gingerroot
  • 2 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed
  • 2 cups red seedless grapes, rinsed
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  •  1 (3-inch) strip lime zest
  • 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 baguette, into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
  • Olive oil for toasting baguette slices
  • Goat cheese, cream cheese or mascarpone cheese

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add minced shallot and saute until tender, but not brown. Stir in minced gingerroot, blueberries, grapes, sugar, red wine vinegar, lime zest and rosemary. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a large glass bowl. Allow to cool to room temperature. Cover bowl tightly and refrigerate. At this point, topping can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

Brush both sides of bread slices with olive oil. Place on large baking sheet. Slide under broiler. When brown on one side, turn slices of bread and brown on the other side.

To serve, set out cheese of choice, toasted baguette slices and Sweet Savory Blueberry Topping.

 

Chocolate and Cherries — Double Trouble

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Two desserts — one plate — all for me. Double trouble. Not for may taste buds, mind you. It’s a problem for my waistline. But, when the desserts are so delicious…

I don’t usually eat two desserts at one time. But, let me tell you how this all came about.

First, my son and daugther-in-law were here for a few days with their nine-month-old daughter. They brought a cookbook with them, Cooking for Baby, by Lisa Barnes. As I paged through the book, I noticed recipes for some fruit purees. With at least a couple of pounds of fresh sweet cherries in my refrigerator, I decided to make cherry puree.

I jazzed up the baby-style puree with a vanilla bean, some sprigs of lemon thyme snipped from my garden, and just a little bit of agave syrup to sweeten it up a tish.

On Sunday evening, with friends coming for dinner, I made a tart with a shortbread crust, adding chopped lemon thyme leaves. I spread some cherry puree over the shortbread before I baked it. As soon as it came out of the oven, I slathered more cherry puree over the top and then arranged fresh blueberries over the puree. As the puree cooled, it held the blueberries tightly in place.

And then, guess what? Our dinner guests arrived with a decadent-looking chocolate dessert in hand. And that is how two desserts with a dollop of slightly sweetened whipped cream wound up on each plate that evening.

The rich chocolate cake was a perfect match for the tart with its shorbread crust, cherry puree and fresh blueberries.

I could see this cherry puree swirled through homemade vanilla ice cream, baked into coffee cakes, spooned into dainty little thumbprint cookies and layered into yogurt parfaits. It keeps well in the refrigerator for a few days.

This rich chocolate cake is the same one you see pictured in my last post to this blog, arranged into a 4th of July star. You can click right here to go quickly over to a chocolate cake recipe in Saveur magazine that is very similar to the cake my friend brought over to my houe. And, lucky you if there is a copy of "The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Chocolate" on your book shelf, where the original recipe appears.

Serve the tart alone. Serve the rich chocolate cake alone. Or make them both and serve them together. It’s really not trouble preparing either one. But watch out — eating both of them together could be double trouble.

Cherry Puree

  • 1 pound fresh sweet cherries
  • 1 vanilla bean
  • 2 (4- to 5-inch-long) sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 teaspoon agave syrup

Remove pits from cherries. Place them in a food processor and puree, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides of the workbowl.

Transfer puree to a saucepan. Split vanilla bean lengthwise and use the tip of a knife to scrape the seeds from the bean. The seeds will seem like a paste when scraped away from the bean. Add the bean and the seeds to the puree, along with the thyme sprigs. Heat over medium-low and simmer until the mixture thickens, stirring often. Remove saucepan from heat and stir in agave syrup. Let cool completely. Refrigerate cooled puree in an airtight container for up to 3 days. It can be stored in the freezer for 3 months. Makes about 1 cup.

Shortbread Cherry and Blueberry Tart

  • 3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks) butter, cold, cut into small cubes
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tablespoons chopped lemon thyme leaves
  • 1/2 cup Cherry Puree, divided
  • 1 pint fresh blueberries
  • Whipped cream, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine butter, powdered sugar, flour and salt with a wooden spoon or a hand-held electric mixer until dough forms a ball. Add chopped thyme and blend well. Spread dough evenly into the bottom and sides of a 10-inch tart pan. Spread 1/4 cup Cherry Puree over the bottom of the tart. Bake until light brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Place tart on wire rack. Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Spread remaining 1/4 cup Cherry Puree over baked tart. Arrange blueberries, in a single layer, over the Cherry Puree. Allow tart to cool completely before serving. Cut into wedges. Garnish each piece with whipped cream and a cherry. Store in refrigerator.

Have your cake and eat 7-Up, too.

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Everytime I look through my mom’s old recipe file, I get a surprise. It’s not often that I take time to flip through the very organized file of cards.  Some recipes she typed onto the cards, others are clippings from newspapers and magazines that she taped onto white recipe cards. I usually go to the large file when I’m looking for a recipe that I remember her making. The other day I was looking for a rhubarb cake in my mom’s recipe file, and I came across 7-Up Cake. It sounded like a pound cake, with lots of butter, way more sugar than what you’d put into a traditional cake and several eggs. The only liquid was 7-Up. I always like a good pound cake, so I made the 7-Up Cake.

I brought the butter and eggs to room temperature. I measured the 7-Up and lemon flavoring into a cup and set it beside the butter and eggs. When I was ready to mix up the cake. I pulled out my heavy-duty stand mixer. I beat the butter and sugar together for close to 10 minutes. I think superfine sugar works best. It dissolves much faster than regular granulated sugar. The eggs went in, one at a time, with each egg incorporated completely into the butter mixture before the next egg went into the bowl. I added the flour in 1/2 cup increments, alternating with some of the 7-Up/lemon flavoring. Just as my mom taught me, I started and ended with the dry ingredients. Lots of fluffy batter.

Although the recipe directs to bake the cake for 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours, I baked it to doneness in about 55 minutes. I’d suggest testing the cake for doneness with a long wooden pick after about 50 minutes of baking. Too much time in the oven will make the cake dry. When the tester comes out clean, the cake is done. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack.

The cake is quite good sprinkled with powdered sugar and eaten as is. Just for the fun of it, I decided to cut the cake through the middle and sandwich some white frosting and blueberries between the two layers. I’m not very good at making straight cuts. I use toothpicks as my guide as I move the serrated knife around the cake.

The frosting/filling concoction I mixed up is acutally a traditional frosting for Waldorf Astoria Cake, sometimes called Red Velvet Cake. I made the Waldorf Cake as cupcakes for this week’s column, topping the bright red cupcakes with whipped cream cheese frosting and fresh blueberries, creating a patriotic red, white and blue dessert for the 4th of July. Traditionlly, though, the red cake is topped with a frosting made of a base of cooked milk and flour.

The cooked frosting is another job for the stand mixer. The cooled mixture of milk and flour is blended with butter and sugar that has been beaten for 20 minutes.  The sugar needs to melt into the butter, becoming light and very smooth. The recipe I offer here is the one I got from my 4-H leader years ago, along with the Waldorf Cake.

The cake is lemony fresh, a bit crunchy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside. If I ever make this dessert again, I would spread the frosting between the two layers of 7-Up Cake and serve fresh berries along side rather than layering them with the filling. I felt I needed to refrigerate the cake with the fresh berries in the middle.

Slices of just plain, unfilled 7-Up Cake would be delicious topped with fresh berry sauce and a dollop of whipped cream.

Blueberry and Cream-Filled 7-Up Cake

  • 3 sticks butter
  • 3 cups sugar (I recommend superfine sugar)
  • 5 large eggs
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons lemon flavoring
  • 3/4 cup 7-Up

Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Add flour, lemon flavoring and 7-Up. Pour into well-greased 12-cup Bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto cooling rack. When cake is completely cool, slice in half. Spread filling over bottom layer, saving some to spread on cut side of top layer. Arrange blueberries over filling. Position top of cake over the filling.

Cream Filling:

  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 pint fresh blueberries, rinsed

Cook flour and milk together until thick. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Cream sugar, butter and vanilla together with electric mixer for 20 minutes until very fluffy and sugar is dissolved. On low speed, blend cooked mixture into butter mixture in bowl. Frosting should be consistency of cold oatmeal.