Blueberry Boy Bait

Moving is hard work, but when you're finally getting settled it's almost like Christmas... you start to find things that you didn't remember you had. Hopefully this will lead to some more interesting posts in the near future.

In case you're wondering why there haven't been too many posts lately, it's honestly because I haven't made anything interesting enough to blog about. We've eaten out more than I care to recall over the last few weeks due to various reasons, most of which revolve around moving, and I figured no one wants to hear about us going to McDonald's for third time in a week... although the new angus burgers are pretty good. Anyhow, now that we're getting more settled, I'm hoping to post more regularly.

Jonas has developed a love for fruit which has been cultivated by all the wonderful things that his grandparents grow in their yard. Knowing how much Jonas enjoys berries, and especially blueberries, his Farmor bought him a large flat of them this last week. This lead me to look around for something to do with all these blueberries, since we had quite a bit more than he was going to be able to eat.

I have a hard time following recipes to the letter, I prefer to look at a recipe as a rough outline of what I'm trying to make... this sometimes frustrates Christie. But this recipe was quite easy, I didn't make any changes and the source included a little story/background on the recipe so I've copied it verbatim below.

Like any recipe with a great name, this also has a great story, which was that in 1954, a 15-year-old girl stole the show (but only won second prize) in the junior division of an early Pillbury Bake-Off with a variation of this recipe, named, she said, after the effect it had on boys.

Cook’s Country magazine dusted this recipe off from the Pillsbury Bake-Off Dessert Cookbook and made a few tweaks to bring it more deliciously into the modern age: butter was swapped for shortening, the quantity of blueberries was doubled and some plain sugar was replaced with brown sugar. The result? Let’s just say you don’t need to be a boy to be lured in.

Serves 12, generously

2 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not defrost first as it tends to muddle in the batter)

Topping
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cake:
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

Whisk two cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down bowl. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining one teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.

For the topping:
Scatter blueberries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, July 2009

Coming Soon: Farmor's Macaroner