Got the blueberry blues

Picking your own blueberries. Picking them from a bush in a field that has been bathing in sunshine so that the blueberries are lovely and warm from all that sunshine. Eating fresh and sweet blueberries directly from the bush. Eating as many blueberries as you’re collecting in your basket. Mmmmmmm.

It’s berry season! That means it’s time to make all kinds of berry-licious things – cakes, tarts, muffins, jams, syrup, cobblers, crumbles, pies, waffles, salads and breads. I think I’ve listed all the possibilities but let me know if I’ve forgotten anything. Anyway, time to get picking. And whatever doesn’t get used up you can freeze easily.

I’ve added blueberries to salads before but I haven’t really found a recipe that has wowed me. My favorite thing to make out of blueberries is cake. Ok, cake and jam. But really, cake is a the god of desserts. And blueberries fit in perfectly.

lime yogurt cake sans blueberry sauce

I made a blueberry sauce to go with this delicious yogurt cake. It was pretty tasty so I didn’t get any pictures of the sauce before we ate it. The original sauce recipe called for blackberries, but I didn’t have any, and so I substituted blueberries. In retrospect I think I should have left out the water, or used a tablespoon at the max. I strained the sauce through a sieve but I should have used an even finer mesh sieve or a piece of muslin instead. As for the cake, it was very yummy. At least I thought so, even the rest of them weren’t wowed by it. Philistines. Oh, and I only had a smaller cake pan so I had a rather tall cake. Which meant that there wasn’t as much of the crust left which was unfortunate since that was the best part.

The blueberries really make the cake

Then there’s this cake. Well, boy bait. Yes, you’re probably wondering why it’s named that. I have no idea. Actually, some quick googling yielded this answer from Samantha’s Bread and Butter: “Blueberry Boy Bait is a buttery, thin, blueberry cake. It is said the name of this man-luring dessert was coined by a young girl in 1954 after she stole the show in a junior Pillsbury Bake-Off. She named this dessert “Blueberry Boy Bait” because of the effect it had on boys.” Ha, a boy luring cake. How awesome. It really was very tasty – see, I didn’t even take any pictures until this cake was almost all gobbled up. I can also imagine a raspberry or blackberry version. And if you really want to splurge you could always a add a bit of a mix of yogurt and whipped cream or creme fraiche as a topping/side with the boy bait.

Blueberries are easily suited to porridge, especially steel-cut porridge, or to a quick dessert. This one was a quick, last-minute dessert made of a mix of ricotta, blueberries, and a mix of frozen berries, plus a bit of whipped cream on the side.

Blue(s)berry Dessert

I remember Mom making a blueberry cake when I was little. She was making it for guests, and the dough was just too moist so she added some semolina to the dough. The finished cake was so delicious, but she doesn’t remember the proportions since she was fudging it. But here is another cake recipe that sounds really interesting. A moist blueberry cake with light lemon icing from I adore food. It uses a lemony frosting which is great since I love that kind of frosting. And the cake itself looks moist and fluffy. Plus you can use fresh or frozen blueberries, perfect. I’ll make this asap, and I hope it’ll be as delicious as it looks!

Doesn’t this cake look scrumptious?

Next on my plate - blueberry crumble, this one with an oatmeal crust (my favorite kind). And  I’ve eaten blueberry muffins before but haven’t yet found the recipe to end all recipes. Smitten Kitchen has one, and I’ve usually like all of those recipes. But let me know if you have any recommendations!

Star Wars (cake!)

I am a geek, I admit it. I’ve given you hints of my geekiness along the way. I could talk and talk and talk about my love of Star Wars. Not that it’s the only proof of geekiness. But this post is about Star Wars, so Star Wars is what I’ll talk about. Btw, did you know that July 13 is “Embrace Your Geekness Day?” Oh, and if you like geeky stuff, you should totally check out Geektroverted. So full of awesome.

I have no idea how often I’ve seen the original trilogy. Not as often as as my friend Mark, who used to watch one of the original Trilogy movies as a teen. I camped out for the Phantom Menace. I heard Anthony Daniels talk, who really is tall and skinny. No wonder he fit into that C3PO outfit. I haven’t seen the 3D version, but I have DVDs of both the revised version of the original Trilogy as well as the unedited one. I like that one better anyway – errors and fudging, and Ewok dancing and all. Btw, don’t you love those little Star Wars chibis? These were made by Joe Wright, over on Deviant Art.

Why is there no Yoda chibi? Lando Calrissian? And if there’s a Govenor Tarkin chibi, what about Admiral Ackbar?

My birthday cake is a classic mocha cake. I love it. It is delicious. It’s only made once a year, for my birthday, so I always look forward to it. I’ve seen some of the cake shows on TV, and have been pretty impressed with some of the cakes that people whip up. I actually once thought of getting an Ace of Cakes cake for my sister’s baby shower, but the waiting time was 1(!!!) year. Whoa. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. And apart from that you have no idea what the cake actually tastes like. You see the the amazing features, but then there are all these pipes and styrofoam elements – you wonder how much cake is actually left. And then there’s all that rolled fondant, which I can’t imagine tasting good. Does anyone know what it tastes like?

But I’ll gladly throw out all my cake prejudices for a Star Wars cake. Or even a Star Wars party. I mean, check out these cakes featured on Geektroverted:

Raspberry buttermilk cake

Raspberry buttermilk cake. Doubling the dough and using frozen raspberries instead of fresh berries:

yum

Mother’s Day deliciousness

(Yes, these are petit fours. No, I didn’t make them. But they were so ridiculously cute, so Mom got them for breakfast. Ok, we split them. I think a petit four per person is plenty. I didn’t have time to make a big breakfast anyway since we went to an Indian dance performance on Sunday morning. I will make my own petit fours one of these days, I promise).

Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to be in town so you can actually prepare a meal for your mom for Mothers Day. I already mentioned the salad that I made, but I also made a cake. Yum. I have a huuuuuge sweet tooth. I love cake, especially homemade cakes. You know that someone put in a time and effort to create something that you think and hope the recipient will like.

We have a few standards around here – nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you feel like branching out. And sometimes a recipe lands in your inbox that you just HAVE to make. That was the case this time around. I got an email from Sassy Radish with the recipe for an awesome cannoli cake. Cannoli. Cake. And Crepes. (I love the alliteration). Just repeat these words. You it has to be good. Add orange puree and you have a homerun.

And yet – I just had to tinker around with the recipe. No great modifications, but something to suit my tastes, and the ingredients I had handy. For example, I had a few overripe mangoes that were just too mushy to use in a salad. Ergo – mango puree mixed with the orange puree. I modified the crepe recipe to get thinner crepes. I used orange and lime zest. I used less sugar – most recipes can stand a reduction of sugar, and still taste just as great.

This was my first time to make my own ricotta. It turned out beautifully and I think I’ll try to use as much homemade ricotta as possible. I couldn’t find any cheesecloth for the life of me so I just used an organic baby diaper cloth made of muslin. With that fabric it took 6 hours til I got the right consistency of ricotta. I got about 2 1/2 cups of ricotta out of the recipe. The 2 cups of ricotta filling weren’t enough for me, so I stretched the filling by using that last 1/2 cup with lime zest, and approximately 1 1/2 powdered sugar. I also used less powdered sugar in that first batch of ricotta filling.

The crepes: The first crepe was thicker which was perfect for the bottom layer. But I didn’t like that thickness for the remaining crepes, plus I would only end up with a few layers. I stretched the crepe batter by adding a bit of milk and some water – probably 1/4 cup of milk, and 1/2 cup of water. I used less than a 1/4 scoop of batter – however much I needed to just coat the bottom of the pan, resulting in perfect thin crepes. They also didn’t cook as long, max 1 minute on the first side and about 20 seconds on the other side. I had an awesome non-stick pan where I barely needed any butter to cook the crepes.

And the orange puree. I had 3 mangoes which were going to into that puree. I had one orange – and no zest. My zest had been used up in the ricotta filling, and smarty pants that I am, I didn’t read the recipe closely enough and realize that I’d need two oranges. So, no orange zest, and no simple syrup. The mangoes were sweet enough to make any added sugar unnecessary. The resulting sauce is still ridiculously delicious – I had it for breakfast, for example on my porridge. Mmmm.

The finished cake. Don’t you want to try some, too?

Since I had so much orange-mango puree I used about 1 1/2 tbsp fruit puree between the layers. And since I wanted the finished cake to look extra pretty, I added a final layer of fruit puree on top. It almost looked like a fruit glaze. So good. I refrigerated the cake before serving it made it easier to cut lovely wedges that wouldn’t slide apart during serving. I served the cake with extra fruit puree and a slight dusting of powdered sugar. I let the photos speak for themselves:

6 bucks

Sometimes you end up being overcharged. You might be in a tight spot and without alternatives so you have to give in, but still, it burns when you pay a ridiculous amount for something that really shouldn’t be that expensive. Are you wondering what I’m talking about? Well, this is the culprit:

The petit fours looks delicious right? The taste was delicious too. I ended up buying three of them – and I had to pay $6.50 for them!!!! That’s total price gouging. I had to pay that much for these little bites???? My problem was that I had to buy them. You see, I had this whole French themed photoshoot going on for Day 1 of the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week – and I didn’t have any alternatives.

See the delicious petit fours? I savored each one of them (not all on the same day!)

Next time I’m making my own petit fours – it’ll probably be a process with lots of little steps, and I’ll have to work very cleanly. Or I could make a petit fours cake. Mmmm, delicious. I just have to find someone/many someones to share it or my waistline won’t thank me.

Petit Fours Cake from Smitten Kitchen

Craft Your Perfect Day

Yes, the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is over, sniff sniff. But really, look at that topic. Isn’t it perfect?

Wildcard Topic: Craft Your Perfect Day
Plan your fantasy day with your craft, It might just take up one hour of your day or be the entire focus of the day, but tell your readers where you’d love to craft, whether you’d craft alone or with friends, knitting or crocheting something simple or spending a day learning new skills.

I’m getting back to normal, getting back to more crafting, and Tuesday is a holiday (yay for May 1st!), so really truly can make it my perfect crafting day. So let’s get to it!

OMG, how awesome - a knitting basket cake!

Well, Tuesday is going to be a beautiful day – sunny, not too warm, spring is in full bloom, and everybody is enjoying the lovely weather. That just calls for a long lovely walk, with a few breaks at park benches along the way. The perfect place for a break, and to pull out my knitting and knit along for a bit while listening to the birds, and the children laughing. And at the end of my walk, I’ll find a coffee shop or a bakery, or maybe even an ice cream shop and treat myself to something sweet – and then knit again for a while. That’ll probably take up quite a few hours right then and there. Since this is my perfect craft day, I’ll just ignore that I should probably take care of some everyday things like, oh, household stuff and so on. And in the evening I’ll curl up on the couch with a cup of tea, find a good movie to watch and get in some quality crafting time – and if there isn’t anything good to watch, then I might just rewatch one of the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars movies for the gazillionth time. Yup, nerd here.

And just in case that the weather gods decide that we should get rain, well, there’s not much better than sitting inside, listening to the rain while you’re all cozy and warm. And hey, I might even go to one of my favorite yarn stores – it’s more of a trek going there, but it’s so amazing. I could indulge in looking at color and fiber combinations and daydream of new yarn purchases and the patterns I’d knit up. No actual yarn buying though, I’m on a yarn diet right now…

Yay! I’m already looking forward to tomorrow!

Blueberry boy bait

Interesting name, awesome dessert. Note that there’s hardly anything left, we ate almost every piece before I could take a picture.

Blueberry Boy Bait