Oh. Hey guys. Hey there. I didn't see you there. Actually, I did.
That might be creepier, huh?
This is a delicious recipe I made and am actually posting. I'm munching on it now, while at work. I took the photos with my iphone, can you believe that? These are slightly more grainy than the pictures taken with my regular camera. Slightly. And it's a nice 10 megapixel olympic something or another. Sometimes I really wish I had a nice camera. My boyfriend's roommate's girlfriend (of Cake & Heels) has a very nice camera and a light set she takes photos of her food with. I am not nearly this cool. I sit in my dim office and take photos with an iphone 4 after making cake in an ancient square silver coloured metal pan that one of my college friend's mother's gave me as a family heirloom. I feel like she maybe wanted me to marry her son, which is a whole other story full of sighs.
This cake, however, is full of blueberries. Which only causes one named Kyle to sigh. It's got a lovely, thick buttermilk batter. That is also full of butter. It's got tangy blueberries ripe for the tasting. It's quite delicious, though honestly if I were to make it again I would tweak the recipe of the batter. I made it straight from Smitten Kitchen's recipe, which is straight from someone elses recipe (replacing milk with buttermilk), and it's mighty fine. But to my tastebuds, I think there is something too hearty for me in this here batter. It's got a country morning kind of feel. I think I either want it sweater or saltier. I think I technically want it with cornmeal. It reminds me of johnny cakes with blueberries.
That said, I still highly recommend it. The recipe is, as always, posted below. I made this in a night at 5 AM after putting together Ikea furniture. I now have three cat litter boxes (this relates to the Ikea furniture). One in my closet, that's huge, that my big fat dumb cat Tseng can use because he's a big fatty. There are two others-- one is in Ikea's "Billy" furniture, tucked into the living room portion of my studio. The other is in another ikea piece and is tiny and is tucked into the dining room portion of my studio. All of this is to prevent Big Fat Tseng from peeing and pooping on my couches. Gross, you guys don't want to come over to my place do you? You can imagine that if you have a cat who seems to want nothing more than to ruin your nice couches in a studio apartment, coming home isn't always a joyride.
But I was putting together furniture, and I said to myself, I said... I'm going to watch Marie Antoinette (a movie I shamelessly love) and clean and make this blueberry cake in honour of Kyle's visiting Canadian friend. Done and done. One hour later I was in bed dreaming of having it for breakfast. I must say, I don't think I baited any boys with this one, but I definitely one some brownie points (harhar, food jokes).
Oh yeah. There's a story attached to this recipe that is far more interesting than my droll ramblings.
So, the year was 1954. There was a really charming 15-year-old girl that stole the show in the Junior Division of an early Pillsbury Bake-Off with a variation of this recipe. She claimed the name came from the effect it had on boys. Despite the effect she (or her cake?) had on boys, she only won second prize, but the magazine Cook's Country dusted this recipe off from the Pillsbury Bake-Off Desser Cookbook and tweaked it to our modern age. Gone was the butter, added were more blueberries, and more sugars. This story was shamelessly ganked from Smitten Kitchen.
I bought my blueberries from Trader Joe's and the boy who checked me out was very curious about what I was making. When I told him it was Blueberry Boy Bait, he seemed more interested than before, and asked me if I was baiting for any boys. I scurried out of there in shame.
Blueberry Boy Bait
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and adapted from Cook's Country, adapted from somewhere else.
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flower, plus 1 teaspoon for blueberries
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour.
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup blueberries, fresh.
For the Topping:
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh.
3/8 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preheat Oven to 350 Degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a baking pan. Mine is small. It overflowed. I suggest a larger one (the recipe before mine calls for a 13x9" baking pan).
Whisk together the flours (sans 1 teaspoon), baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars together until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating them until just incorporated and scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula. Reduce the speed and beat in one third of the flour mixture until incorporated. Beat in half the buttermilk, and once mixed in repeat with half the flour, the rest of the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour. Toss the blueberries with the remaining flour and gently fold them into the batter. Spread the batter in your prepared pan.
Now, this is where I deviated.
For the topping:
Sprinkle 2/8 of the sugar over the battle, also with cinnamon (I honestly just shook mine on top because I have a love affair with cinnamon). Now, toss the blueberries with the remaining sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the batter. For some reason, these still all sunk to the bottom for me. Curse you blueberries!
Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for at least 20 minutes.
PS. I've secretly been liking recipe calculators lately. So I calculated, and this recipe contains the following nutritional information for 16 servings (which is what I made):
253 Calories, 12.8 Grams fat. 3.6 grams protein. 1.1 grams fiber.
Now you know!
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