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The Chef was home yesterday and we decided to tackle cleaning out the refrigerator.  (Cue scary music.)  We found all sorts of things that we'd forgotten about.  Lots of expired salad dressing and moldy slop that was once food.  Yuck.  When we got to the freezer I found the blueberries that my friend Abbi had given me a while back that I stuck in the freezer and forgot all about.  Now that it truly is fall the produce isn't as tasty as it was just a few weeks ago and my mouth watered thinking about what I could do with them.

An obvious choice would be blueberry muffins, but Abbi and I (with the kids) did that already.  How about a bundt cake so I can use that bundt pan I insisted on buying but have never used?  I reached into the cobwebs of my mind for a recipe from a bakery I used to work at and stirred it all together and popped it into the oven.

This is such a versatile recipe, you could make muffins, mini-muffins, muffin tops or loaves out of it.  You also could use other fruit or even cinnamon chips.  (Unfortunately cinnamon chips aren't carried in many stores, although they used to be, but you can still find them at King Arthur's Flour, www.kingarthurflour.com, and several other online places.)

Fresh out of the oven the cake looked delicious, but I decided to add a lemon glaze since I'd also rescued a lemon in the "Great Refrigerator Clean-Up of 2009".  Blueberry and lemon is a match made in Heaven as far as I'm concerned!  If you use a different fruit that doesn't go with lemon, or a chip, just leave the cake plain or use an appropriate Streusel.  A nice neutral Streusel is:  2/3 C brown sugar, 1/4 C All-purpose flour, 1/4 t cinnamon, 2 T butter.  Mix with a fork until it has nice coarse texture.

This is a great dessert or a really decadent breakfast.  There's enough that you could have it for both, which is what we did!

-The Baker



Cake Base:

  • 3 C (400 g) All-purpose Flour
  • 1 1/2 C (295 g) Sugar, granulated
  • 1 t (7) Salt
  • 1 T + 1 t (16 g) Baking Powder
  • 2/3 C (130 g) Vegetable Oil
  • 2 ea (100 g) Egg
  • 2/3 C (165 g) Milk
  • 2 C Blueberries
  1. Toss the blueberries in a small amount of the flour (this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the pan); set aside
  2. Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking powder into a bowl; set aside
  3. Combine oil, egg and milk in another bowl and whisk together
  4. Mix together all the dry ingredients with the wet; stop mixing before it's completely combined; stir in the floured blueberries; stir just until just barely mixed, streaks of flour is all right (over-mixing will cause the cake to be very heavy and dry)
  5. Spoon into prepared 9" x 3" bundt pan
  6. Bake at 350 F for 65 minutes
  7. Let the cake cool in the pan and then flip out onto a platter
  8. Drizzle the warm glaze over the cake

Lemon Glaze:
  • Zest from 1 lemon
  • Juice from 1 lemon
  • 1 C Powdered Sugar
  • 1 T Water
  1. Zest and juice lemon into a small pot
  2. Add the powdered sugar; stir
  3. Place pot over low heat; add the water to help dissolve the sugar; if you want the glaze to be thinner add more water, thicker add less water