Blueberry Surprise Cake

So this was the last cake in the book, and it's a good one. We had it for Saturday breakfast, but it would make a really nice afternoon tea kind of cake as well.

As you can perhaps see, the "blueberry surprise" element here comes from the fact that you put in a layer of buttery sour cream cake, then a layer of spiced berries, and then more cake (now with nuts added). You don't see the berries until you cut into the cake.

 The cake is perhaps a bit time-consuming for a Saturday morning: the batter and all come together fairly quickly (though it involves turning on the mixer, which I don't love doing so early in the morning), but it needs about an hour in the oven. But then again, given that the rest of the family isn't up until at least an hour after me, that's probably fine.

 The cake then gets a lemon-y glaze. I considered leaving it off, since the cake was breakfast and all, but I think I made the right decision to go for it: the tart sweetness adds a nice extra dimension.

When I cut into the cake, I thought, "wow, that kind of looks like a Pop-Tart!" Given that I don't much like Pop-Tarts, I'm glad that it doesn't actually taste like one. It's a nice mix of buttery richness and fruity sweetness. It was a great cake to finish off a long succession of great cakes.

Here's the recipe.

Blueberry Surprise Cake

1 c. (4 oz.) fresh (I used frozen) blueberries

3 T. (I used 2) sugar

1 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. nutmeg

1 t. lemon juice (attention: zest the lemon before you squeeze it; you're going to want that zest for the cake batter)

Mix all these ingredients in a smallish bowl and set aside.

1 c. (8 oz.) butter

2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

Grated zest of 1 lemon

1 t. vanilla

1-1/3 c. (9.3 oz.) sugar

2 large eggs

1 c. (8 oz.) sour cream

2 c. (8 oz.) sifted flour (yes, I used some whole wheat here)

1/3 c. (1.3 oz.) toasted chopped pecans

Heat the oven to 350. Butter a 9-inch springform and dust with breadcrumbs, wheat germ, or ground nuts (I used ground almonds). Cream the butter with the baking powder, salt, lemon zest, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar and beat a couple more minutes until even more light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in the sour cream and then mix in the flour at low speed. Carefully spoon half the batter all around the bottom of the prepared springform pan and spread it out as best you can--I had trouble getting the batter all the way out to the edges and it wanted to come up off the bottom of the pan. Then sprinkle on the berries, leaving a 1-inch margin at the edges. Add the pecans to the batter, stir them in, and then spoon the batter onto the berries, again gingerly spreading the batter as evenly as possible. Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes (check after 45 minutes) or until the top of the cake springs back when lightly pressed. The toothpick won't work because of the berries in the middle.

Let the cake stand in the pan while you make the glaze:

1 c. (4 oz.) powdered (icing) sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

boiling water as needed

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and lemon juice. If the glaze isn't thin enough to barely pour, add a few drops of boiling water. 

Cut around the sides of the cake if necessary and remove the sides of the springform pan. Turn the cake over onto a rack and remove the bottom. Then reverse again onto a plate so that the cake is right-side up. Drizzle the glaze over the warm cake and spread it to cover the top--let it drip down the sides if you have enough. Obviously I didn't use the full cup of sugar here.

Enjoy the cake warm or room temperature. If you're not having it for breakfast, whipped cream or ice cream would be nice, but they're definitely not necessary.

East Blue Hill Blueberry Coffee Cake

Last weekend was a three-day weekend (Armistice Day), and a well-deserved one at that: since I would be missing my four classes on Friday, my school's administration in all its wisdom spread the courses out over three days, two of which I normally have off. So I was ready for the holiday to roll around. 

The Saturday morning of a three-day weekend is awesome because it feels like it's already Sunday, but it's not! It's that feeling you get when your alarm goes off but you don't actually have to get up. And so getting up and making coffee cake was not a chore (well, it never is) but a pleasure.

And this is a good one: a simple butter cake topped with blueberries and sugar. Julia wondered what had happened to "the crunchy stuff" (I guess I like to put streusel on my coffee cake), but really, the cake was good without it.

The only downside to this cake was that I found it to have a bitter aftertaste. I had just read David Lebovitz's article about baking powder and saw that he buys aluminum-free baking powder to avoid that bitterness. I'm pretty sure my Target-brand baking powder has aluminum, but I'm just as sure that the Wal-mart baking powder I had before (can you tell I'm a cheapskate?) also contained aluminum. So I'm guessing the problem may be either that I just opened a fresh, new can or that this recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder for 1-1/2 cups (sifted) flour. I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to exceed 1 teaspoon baking powder per cup of flour, and Maida likes you to use light (4 ounces, rather than the standard unsifted 5) cups of flour, so that may be the problem. If I were making this again, I'd use 1-1/2 t. baking powder at most. 

But otherwise, this is a fruity, buttery, not-too-sweet cake that tastes great warm from the oven on a lazy Saturday morning. Give it a try!

Here's the recipe.

East Blue Hill Blueberry Coffee Cake

1/4 c. (2 oz.) butter, room temperature

2 t. baking powder (see note above)

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/4 t. salt

1 t. vanilla

Grated zest of 1 (organic) lemon

3/4 c. (5.25 oz.) sugar (I used a little less than 5 oz.)

1 egg

1-1/2 c. (6 oz.) sifted flour (I used 2 oz. whole wheat)

2/3 c. (5.3 oz.) milk

1-1/2 c. (6 oz.) fresh or frozen blueberries

Additional sugar (raw or crystal sugar is nice here)

Heat the oven to 350. Butter an 8-inch square pan and dust it with wheat germ or bread crumbs. Beat the butter with the baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, vanilla, and lemon zest until soft and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat 2-3 minutes longer. Scrape down and add the egg, beating until well mixed. Stir (or beat at low speed) in half the flour, then the milk, then the rest of the flour. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. If your blueberries tend to be on the tart side, toss them with a couple of tablespoons of sugar, and then spread them over the batter (I didn't add any sugar to mine, and I thought the sweetness level was perfect). Sprinkle another tablespoonful of sugar over the berries and put the cake in the oven for 45-50 minutes (check after 30 minutes or so). Maida wants you to put the cake under the broiler for a minute to caramelize the berries and sugar, but I thought the cake was fine without that step. Serve warm with coffee for breakfast or with ice cream for dinner.

Apple Kuchen

I'm starting to run out of fruit desserts I can make from American Desserts. Everything left in the "Shortcake, Cobblers, Pandowdy, Etc." section seems to involve either peaches or blueberries. Well, it's February, and let me tell you what I can get at the market: apples, pears, and oranges.

Fortunately, the recipe for "Peach Kuchen" allows the substitution of just about any fruit you'd like: apples, pears, blueberries. I went for the apple version, though I bet pears would be really great with the almonds.

This is an interesting cake because it involves both yeast and baking powder, but no rising time. That made it easier to make for Saturday breakfast.

I mentioned to my friends Gabriela and Cécile the other day that I was baking a cake for Saturday breakfast. They seemed to find that somewhat surprising, although really they shouldn't be surprised to find me baking at any time or day...

OK, dough ready. Maida wants you to use a frozen 9x13-inch pan and stretch out the dough very thin. I wasn't up for that, and neither was my freezer. So I did a large-ish cake pan, which seemed to work out well.

I only ended up using three of these guys, probably because I used the smaller cake pan. And this time my market guy was right on when he recommended this type for cake. No mush whatsoever!

To me what makes a cake a "breakfast cake" is streusel. Even though streusel has nothing healthy going for it.

Oh, wait--almonds. That counts, right?

So here's the cake ready for the oven: yeast dough, sliced apples, streusel. We've got grain, fruit, and a source of protein. This is breakfast food for sure! And may I add that everyone else was still sleeping when I took this picture?

Mmm...the finished product. Maida wants you to drizzle frosting over it, but let me just say that frosting would NOT add to the cake--it's pretty darned sweet as is. And delicious: the cake is just this side of bread-y; the apples held together nicely; the streusel added that special luxurious crunch. I'm not going to make something this involved for breakfast every Saturday, but it was certainly appreciated this week.

Here's the recipe, as I made it. Make it on any day you want to have your cake and breakfast too.

Apple Kuchen

1/2 c. (4 oz.) butter, room temperature

2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

Grated rind of 1 large lemon or 1 small orange (I used the latter)

1/2 t. vanilla

1/4 t. almond extract

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz) sugar

2 large eggs

2 c. (10 oz) flour (I used about 1/3 whole wheat flour)

1-1/2 t. rapid-rise or instant yeast

6 T. (3 oz.) milk

Grease a 10-inch cake or springform pan. Beat the butter with the baking powder and salt until creamy; add the lemon rind, vanilla, and almond and beat a bit longer. Gradually add the sugar and beat about a minute, then beat in the eggs. Mix the yeast with the flour and add half of that, then the milk, then the other half of the flour mixture, beating on low speed just until incorporated each time. Scrape the batter, which will be pretty thick, into the pan and spread it around. Let sit in a warm place while you get the fruit and streusel ready. Heat the oven to 350.

3 apples (or pears, or peaches, or blueberries, or a combination)

Peel the apples; quarter and core them. Cut each quarter into 3-4 slices and arrange the apple slices decoratively on the cake. If you're using pears or peaches, do approximately the same thing; blueberries just need to be sprinkled on (I think I'd want a fairly thick layer).

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz.) brown sugar

1 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. salt

1/4 c. (1.25 oz.) flour

3 T. (1.5 oz.) butter

1/2 c. (2 oz.) sliced almonds

In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and flour. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers. Mix in the almonds. Sprinkle the streusel over the fruit.

Put the cake in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. This is best when it's still hot or warm. Enjoy it with a nice cup of coffee or tea.

p.s. I just reread the recipe, which actually has you spread half the batter in the pan, layer in the fruit, and then carefully cover the fruit with the other half of the batter and then the streusel. If you're a stickler, you could do that, but I liked my way just fine.

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Alicia, you're right about two things: sugared strawberries are better, and it's really hard to say goodbye to a daughter. Oh, one more thing: that saying about getting only as much as you can handle--not sure I can buy into that one, either. Actually, you're right about many things...except raisins. Raisins are good.
I proved that once again today when I made the Cream Cheese Coffee Cake. OK, I'm totally out of order, but I really needed a project today, and I always make something special on Saturday mornings, so this fit in perfectly.
This really is quite the project, even though it wasn't that difficult. It just takes a really long time. Claire and I didn't have "breakfast" until about 11. Good thing I had cut up that ginormous melon I got at Whole Foods yesterday (making lemonade from airport lemons)--that tided us over nicely. Got up at 6:30, made dough (which comes together really fast in the food processor), and let it rise while I went to The Evil Empire (7:30 on Saturday morning is a great time to go there!) to buy cream cheese and other necessities. Got home, started laundry, did some dishes, and then Claire was up in time to make the filling for me. She did a great job with that. The directions for making the braid weren't all that clear, and even though I usually don't need pictures in a cookbook, some line drawings would have been helpful. Nonetheless, we rolled out the dough and brushed on the apricot jam and spooned on the filling and braided it up. I even used a ruler to cut the dough strips! Then another hour to kill--editing and laundry and dishes and trying to avoid the reality of a too-empty house. Finally it was time to bake that sucker. I hadn't noticed that you were supposed to shape the dough on the aluminum foil. Fortunately, I had formed it on a silicone rolling mat (thanks, Dad and Sharmyn!) that was oven-safe, so I could just transfer that baby to the baking sheet. I then made a little foil shield around the coffee cake to protect against leakage. If Julia hadn't taken the one operating camera to France (which was a good thing, mind you!), I could have shown you how that looked. But there was actually little to no leakage. And it really did "look spectacular" and "taste sensational". I made just half the recipe, but hardly dare say that there's one little end piece left. Let me just say that I only had three thin-ish slices. Don't know where the rest went (do you, Claire?)...
Verdict: it's a keeper. The dough is really nice to work with--rolled out easily and didn't give me any trouble at all. The filling was just right, and it looked pretty darned professional. If I can figure out how to upload cell phone photos, I'll show you just how good :-). In the meantime, here's the recipe I made:

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Dough

3 T. (1.5 oz.) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 c. warm water
1 egg
1-1/2 c. (7.5 oz.) flour (I used about half white whole wheat and half all-purpose)
2-1/4 t. (1 envelope) instant yeast (I have a jar of bread machine yeast in the fridge)
1/4 t. salt
1/4 c. sugar

Mix together the water, butter, and egg in the measuring cup. Put the dry ingredients in the food processor and buzz until they're mixed. Then open the feed tube and pour in the wet ingredients. Process that for one minute. Mine formed a ball first, then got soft and mushy. It turned out OK, though. Then turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it for 1 minute. Put the dough into a greased bowl, cover it, and let it rise for a couple of hours. While it's rising, get your cream cheese out of the fridge to soften.

Filling
1-1/2 t. water
1-1/2 t. rum
1-1/2 t. sugar
1/4 c. (1.2 oz.) golden raisins
1 8-oz. block cream cheese, room temp.
1/4 c. (1 oz.) powdered sugar
1 egg yolk (save the white!)
1/2 t. vanilla
grated rind of about 1/2 orange
about 3 T. apricot jam (don't mix this into the filling!)

Put the water, rum, sugar, and raisins in a microwave-safe bowl; cover and zap for 1 minute on high. Let that sit and cool while you mix together the cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, and orange rind. When that's all nice and smooth, beat in the raisins.
If you have a Silpat or something like that, get that out. Flour it lightly and turn the dough onto that. Roll it into about a 12-inch long rectangle (maybe 12x8? I didn't measure...). Face the dough lengthwise, if that makes sense. (See? A picture is worth a thousand words!) Then mark about 1-1/2 inches on each side of the dough--these are the parts of the dough that will form the braid, and they need to stay "naked" for now. Brush the apricot jam onto the middle of the dough, then cover that with cream cheese filling. Now mark the bare dough at one-inch intervals, and cut it into strips, so that you have a sort of fan pattern on both sides. Now fold up the top and bottom like a burrito, and then carefully fold each strip over the filling, alternating to make a braid. If it looks good and the filling is covered, you're in good shape. Now cover the masterpiece and let it sit on the counter for another hour while you tend to your business. I bet you could also refrigerate it overnight, let it sit on the counter, and then bake it up in the morning. So anyway, shortly before your hour is up, preheat the oven to 350 and mix together
The egg white you saved
About 1 T. milk.

Pick up the Silpat and move it carefully onto a baking sheet. Uncover the dough and brush it with the egg white mixture (Maida wants another egg yolk for that purpose, but the white worked fine for me). Then roll up some long strips of aluminum foil into "snakes" and surround the braid with them, as a kind of side support. Now put it in the oven and let it bake about 25 minutes, until it's gorgeous and golden brown. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Maida says to let this cool to room temp, but we had it very warm and it was delicious. It's also delicious at room temperature. This should really serve at least 4, but it did quite nicely for 2.