Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

Keith (the bf) and his friends like to have these occasional get-togethers at each other's houses. Everyone makes a dish, the person who hosts makes the main course, and everyone has a great time (also there's a lot of wine involved). He and I hosted the last one and we made Ina Garten's Tequila Lime Chicken. Now anyone that's ever heard me talk about my fondness for the Barefoot Contessa knows this already: I love Ina Garten. None of her recipes that I've tried have ever turned out bad or, for that matter, less than perfect. They're incredibly and consistently spot on.

Needless to say, the Tequila Lime Chicken was a hit. This week, Keith's friend Shannon was hosting, and Keith volunteered us to make a dessert. I learned about this on Tuesday night, and since the dinner was Wednesday evening, I didn't have loads of time to plan.

Ever since it was published in the now-defunct Gourmet magazine, Raspberry Buttermilk Cake has been making its rounds on food blogs with various changes and alterations. The concept is simple enough: a tender, moist, single-layer buttermilk cake topped with some delicious, ripe berries. What could go wrong?



FAIL.

However, I was vigilant and determined. I have a new, professional stand mixer for Pete's sake!



Okay, okay, that was a cheap way to show off the mixer that I finally took a pic of. Either way, the cake was easy and quick to make so after the first fail, I decided to try it again. After double-checking that I did everything right, I looked at other blogs that had featured this cake. No one seemed to have any problems at all?!

I'm no pastry chef, but I certainly know my way around baked goods. The cake stuck in the pan, despite greasing and flouring, because the blueberries that are placed on top sunk down to the bottom of the cake. I'm not sure how other people had not experienced this before. I decided to take out double insurance. I lightly floured the blueberries, and I lined the cake bottom with parchment. The blueberries still sank, but the cake came out beautifully the second time around. I even made some berry-whipped cream to accompany it.

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake with Berry-Whipped Cream

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon zest
1 egg

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup blueberries, washed and dried
1/2 tbsp sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9-inch cake pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper, grease the parchment, and dust the pan with flour.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. In the bowl of a mixer, beat the softened butter and sugar on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and lemon zest and mix until incorporated. Add the egg and beat well.

Add the flour in thirds, alternately with the buttermilk. Begin and end with the flour and mix until just combined. Scrape down the bowl of the mixer as needed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the blueberries on top and dust the top with the 1/2 tbsp sugar.



Bake at 400 degrees for about 18-22 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test. The cake should be evenly browned and just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let the cake cool in the pan for ten minutes then invert and remove the parchment paper very carefully. This is a shot of the cake upside down after the parchment has been removed:



Berry-Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy cream
1/4-1/3 cup sugar
1 cup blackberries/raspberries

In a chilled mixer bowl, whip the cream until thickened but still soft. While whipping, mix in the sugar (to taste). Once the cream is thick with stiff peaks, whip in the berries by hand. It won't take long and the berries will break up, coloring the whipped cream and imparting there delightful berry goodness throughout.



After all of this, the dinner was canceled at the last minute and postponed until next week. Keith and I were left with two cakes, one in significantly better condition than the other. I decided to try to freeze the nice cake while Keith and I nommed on the less-than-nice cake with some whipped cream last night for dessert. While it wasn't picture perfect, it was damned tasty and the whipped cream was phenomenal!

Blackberry Cheesecake Pots (Pots de Gateau au Fromage?)

The title is proof that I don't speak french.

The dessert, however, is proof that I love cheesecake. The problem with cheesecake, at least for me, is the time and quantity. Now, while I feel like I could eat a cheesecake by myself, this is not a feat to which I aspire. Frankly, I can't remember an event that's warranted baking an entire cheesecake anyway. That's where these delightful little pots come in. Single serving, cheesecake filling goodness. I only wish I had a nice crunchy biscotti or even a graham cracker to enjoy with these guys.

Blackberry Cheesecake Pots

8oz cream cheese (use light if you must, but for the love of all that is good, avoid fat-free)
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla

1 pint blackberries, washed, dried, and divided

In the bowl of a mixer--a mixer just like my brand new professional Kitchen Aid maybe???--break up the cream cheese and beat until creamy and some air has been incorporated into it. Add 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 tbsp cream, vanilla, and beat on medium high until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is lightened.

In another bowl beat the remaining 1/4 cup of cream until slightly thick. Add 1 tbsp of sugar and beat until soft peaks have formed. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. The whipped cream may not be fully incorporated into the cream cheese. Add most of the blackberries (I reserved about 8 for garnishes), and mix on medium speed until the berries are broken up and the mixture is uniform.

Spoon into ramekins or any other fun single-serving dish and refrigerate to allow it to firm up. Garnish with remaining blackberries. Done! This is super fast and incredibly easy to make. It's decadent and definitely satisfies that cheesecake urge.



Now to see how I can make them a little lower in the fat department...

Other things I've tried lately...

• I haven't updated in a bit, and this is my first post from my new apartment in Dayton. We're still unpacking everything. Ha. But I have cooked a bit and definitely have some fun things I want to mention.

• Alton Brown's Pizza Pizzas dough is AMAZING and I will be using it again. I owe my friend Anne a debt of gratitude for teaching me how to make delicious pizza.

• Kale chips... they've been around the blogosphere for a while and, given my penchant for trying healthy foods, I thought I'd give a recipe a whirl--two whirls in fact. The results of the first attempt were great. I simply tossed some kale with a little garlic infused olive oil, salt, pepper, hungarian spicy paprika, and baked them until they were dry. The results were great and tasty, though the chips don't withstand the test of time well. The second attempt was just disappointing, but I think I used a different, inferior variety of kale. I'll work on this more in the future.

Banana Maple Muffins

Personally, it irks me when I read a food blog that claims to provide a "low-fat" and "guilt-free" muffin recipe but fails to deliver. As someone who takes nutrition seriously, when I see 1/3 cup oil (read: 75 grams of fat) in such a recipe, I know it's because of carelessness. I'm all for healthy fats in a well-balanced diet, but we can get those from other places than our "guilt-free" morning muffins.

I'm not sure if I can call these whole wheat. Truthfully, I'm using a mixture of white all-purpose and whole wheat flour because I'm a bit scared of the texture of a muffin made with 100% whole-wheat flour.

I'm using my yogurt/applesauce trick again (plus 1 tbsp of butter) in order to give these muffins some delicious texture. Additionally, since there's no crumb topping, these guys are going to be nice and light. Each muffin has only 190 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. I'm pretty darned proud of these muffins from a nutritional standpoint. The sweetness, and a good chunk of the calories, come from pure maple syrup. It's definitely a splurge, since I don't usually keep any in, but it definitely makes a difference in the flavor of these muffins.

Banana Maple Muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 large mashed bananas
1 cup pure maple syrup
1 egg
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup fat free greek yogurt
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

I love muffins because the directions are so easy. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line your muffin tray. Whisk together all of the dry ingredients until well combined. In another bowl mix the mashed bananas, maple syrup, egg, applesauce, yogurt, butter, and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Scoop into the muffin tin and bake for about 18 - 20 minutes or until the pass the toothpick test.

Having tried the recipe, and having failed to take any pictures, I'm not yet 100% happy with them. It might be some displeasure with the texture of banana muffins in general, but I think I may try the 100% whole wheat approach next time. And rather than mashing the bananas, I'll chop them and fold them into the mixture last. More experiments to come...

Oven-baked Fries

This recipe comes courtesy of another www.tastespotting.com blog find. Basically, these are the best oven-baked french fries I've ever had.

The recipe is a bit heavy on the procedure--you have to soak the wedges in hot water, heat the oil on the pan, cover the fries in foil, then uncover them and later flip them over. However, the result makes the fries very much worth the preparation. I wish I had a better camera so I could really show the crispy outer layer of potato goodness.



Oven-baked French Fries

3 medium russet potatoes*
1 1/2 tbsps olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F and arrange an oven rack towards the bottom of the oven. Cut into roughly even-sized wedges, and soak them in hot water (from the tap) for 10 minutes, then drain and dry the wedges thoroughly.

Pour the oil onto your baking sheet, and place it in the oven to heat for 2-3 minutes. Remove the baking sheet and toss the potato wedges and hot oil together on the pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover the wedges with foil and place into the oven.

Bake for 5 minutes. Remove the foil and return to the oven for 10-15 minutes or until they have started to brown in spots on the bottom. Turn the fries over using tongs or a spatula and return to the oven for another 5-15 minutes or until nicely browned.

*This recipe definitely lends itself to multiplying or dividing as your needs dictate. Personally, I'd be hard-pressed to fit more than three potatoes worth of wedges onto a single baking sheet, but that's just me. I first made this recipe using only one potato and reduced the oil to just under a tbsp.

Blueberry Muffin Variation

For this recipe, I was more diligent in my use of crumble.

I used whole wheat, unbleached all-purpose flour just because.

I kept with using only blueberries this time. No raspberry sinkholes, thank you very much.

I also added 1 tbsp of butter to the batter to help the texture along. For the original recipe, scroll down to my previous post. I told you I would be on a muffin kick and I think I'm incredibly happy with these blueberry muffins.

The fat content is still rather low, only about 3.5-4 grams per muffin. Frankly, it would have been about 1.5-2 grams without that damned crumble. But how can anyone resist?



A gift for my friend Amanda for all of her help this quarter. She is truly amazing!