Blueberry Cake - Starbucks style

It's been ages since I blogged. Last weekend, my bro came home and asked if I could make some blueberry cake for him. Well, I asked him if he wanted muffins or cake and upon insistence set out to make some "cake". He has a sweet tooth while I don't so here's what I ended up making that finally satisfied both our taste preferences.

The ingredients I used are:

Butter - 1/2 cup
White sugar - 1/2 cup
Salt - 2 pinches or 1/4 tsp
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Eggs - 2 large/extra large (separate the yolk from the white but retain both)
All-purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Whole milk - 1/3 cup
Fresh blueberries - 1 1/2 cup
White sugar - 1/4 cup
All-purpose flour to roll in the blueberries - 1 tbs
Brown sugar - 1/2 tsp

Preparation time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 50 mins

Its a very simple process and starts with preheating the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In the meantime, grease and flour an 8 inch square pan or a circular one.

Now, cream butter and 1/2 cup sugar until fluffy. Add some salt and vanilla. Separate eggs and reserve the whites. Add egg yolks to the sugar mixture and beat until creamy.
            
Combine 1 1/2 cups flour and baking powder; add alternately with milk to egg yolk mixture. Coat berries with 1 tablespoon flour and add to batter. 
           
In a separate bowl, beat whites until soft peaks form.  Add 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form.  Fold egg whites into batter.  Pour into prepared pan.  Sprinkle top with remaining 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar.               
                   
Bake for 50 minutes, or until cake tests done.

You don't need to pay "Star bucks" to get that home-made taste.

 

Yummy blueberry muffins

Baking time: 20-25 mins
Preparation time: 15 mins
Oven temperature: 400-425 degrees F.


Ingredients:

2 cups – blueberries. (Rinse them well at the nodes.)
2 ½ cups – all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
¼ cup butter (melted at room temperature) and ¼ cup veg. oil
2- 2 ½ tsp baking powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cup sugar plus 1 tsp
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp brown sugar.

Getting blueberries ready:
Step 1: In a small saucepan set over medium heat, combine one cup of blueberries with one teaspoon sugar. Bring it to a simmer. Stir frequently while cooking until berries have broken down and mixture has thickened. Notice the quantity reduces to about 1/4 cup. Remove pan from heat; set aside and let cool to room temperature.
Step 2: Sprinkle a scant tbsp of all-purpose flour over remaining the other cup of blueberries and toss to coat; set aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Now, in a medium bowl, whisk together sugar and eggs until mixture is pale yellow, thick and fluffy. While whisking, slowly pour in melted butter and oil and mix well. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla until completely incorporated. Make sure you don’t whisk too long. It’s ok if you find lumps here and there. Using a spatula, gently fold in the egg mixture and the flour coated blueberries (of Step 2) into flour mixture until just incorporated. Do NOT overly mix.

Now in a standard 12 cup muffin pan, place the muffin cups/papers and start distributing the batter. Make sure the batter just fills in the cup without mounding since the next step would be to place a teaspoon of cooked berry mixture above the batter in 12 cups. You could either mix the berries with batter or have them just as topping. Sprinkle just a pinch or two of brown sugar as the final topping.
Place in oven and increase temperature to 425 degrees F. Bake muffins. Depending on how long you took to prepare the batter, it can take anywhere between 20-23 minutes for the muffins to bake. As usual, prick a toothpick into the center of muffins to test if they’re done. Ready muffins will leave no trace on the toothpick. Take them out and let cool.