Cakes 31 and 32, The Blueberry Things

Well, it's been a while since I baked things.... and even longer since I blogged about them. Due to the excess punnets of fresh "gourmet" blueberries in the fridge (which nobody ate), I took it upon myself to make things with them. I made blueberry muffins and a blueberry streusel cake. I always forget how much of a difference it makes cooking with fresh blueberries - the batter doesn't end up a yucky concrete-grey, but stays golden and luscious with little dots of purpley-blue. Mmm...

Blueberry Muffins (from my mother's cookbook - probably originally Alison Holst... who puts Ido Drent to shame - she's the real Queen of Puddings. But anyway.)

Preheat the oven to 220C, the muffin temperature, and grease/pattycase-line a muffin tray.

In a large bowl, combine:
2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar

In another bowl, beat together:
100g melted butter
1 cup milk
1 egg

Combine the wet and dry, don't mix it too much, then stir in 1 - 1 1/2 cups blueberries.
Spoon into the waiting patty cases, and bake for 12-15 minutes.

(Cranberry and) Blueberry Streusel Cake (from my most awesome cookbook "Fruit")

Preheat the oven to 190C and grease/line a cake tin.
Cream 175g of soft butter and 1/2 cup sugar until smooth, then rub in 3 cups of plain flour with your fingertips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Set aside a generous 1 cup of this mixture.

Into the remaining floury muck, beat 2 large eggs, 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp vanilla essence "until soft and creamy". My mixture ended up more like a firm pastry... so i added a dash of milk to try and soften it up, but it didn't really help. I wonder if perhaps my eggs weren't big enough, or maybe I didn't take out enough of the the floury stuff... Anyhow, I'm not sure quite what went wrong, but perhaps more butter would have been a good idea (it always is).

Spoon/force this "creamy" mixture into the base of the tin and spread evenly. Arrange 1 cup each of cranberries (didn't have any) and blueberries on top, and sprinkle over 1/2 cup light muscovado sugar (I just used soft brown). Stir 1/2 tsp crushed cardamom seeds (not something I generally have on hand) into the reserved flour mixture, then scatter evenly on top of the fruit.

Bake for 50-60 minutes (I think I did it for a bit less, it was starting to burn on top by 40 mins) or until the topping is golden.

I really liked it, but it was way denser than I anticipated. It was more shortbread-y than cake-y. I don't think I've ever had streusel before, so maybe it's meant to be like that. This cake is most definitely best scoffed hot. As most things are :)