Blueberry Yoghurt Bundt Cake

Have had a silicone bundt mould for ages, but haven't used it. It's a friend's birthday today so I decided to make her a bundt birthday cake.
Her favourite fruits are blueberries, and they were on offer in my local supermarket - perfect. I decided to add some lemon flavour with the blueberries. I also had a pot of  natural yoghurt to use up, so added some to the mixture to make the cake nice and moist. I finished it off with some lemon glace icing drizzled over the top.
I love Ina Garten's lemon yoghurt cake link is here  which Smitten Kitten made into a lovely lemon and blueberry one -  link is here .
The cake mixture is really a sandwich mix, or pound cake or quatre quarts - most countries seem to have their own version.
I bought one of the Cake Release sprays so the cake would come out of the mould [my dil had problems getting her cakes out of bundt tins, so advised me to buy some].
So, it's a simple cake made to look more interesting by using a fancy mould!

Preheat oven 180C/gas4              
 Spray a 23cm bundt mould with Cake Release [or grease it with melted butter using a pastry brush]

Beat 225g of butter and 225g of caster sugar with an electric hand beater or in a stand mixer till nice and light and fluffy. Gradually add  4 eggs, one at a time, then fold in 225g sr flour, finely grated rind of 2 lemons and about a tbspn or so of juice, 2 tbspn of natural yoghurt and 250g of blueberries.
I found that using a spatula was a good way to get the mixture into the mould.
Bake for 45-50 mins till cake springs back when you touch it. Leave it to cool in the mould for 5 mins then turn out [hopefully all in one piece!] onto a wire rack.
For the icing, just sieve 100g of icing sugar in a bowl and add some lemon juice till you have the thickness you want. Drizzle this over the cake and leave icing to set.

Blueberry Buckle

Have been trying to unravel the difference between various American words used in desserts - slump, grunt, cobbler and buckle. I've made a cobbler a few times, cutting out scone-like cobbles to put on top of the fruit but what's a grunt or a slump? Great words, and what  pictures they conjure up.
I found a recipe in an American book I bought from 'The Works' years ago, for a Blueberry Buckle. This sounded intriguing so I had to make one. What is it? It's a cake mixture with the fruit added which is put into the bottom of the cake tin, and a streusel type mixture is spooned on top. The name Buckle is supposed to have been used because the top of the baked dessert looks like it's buckled under the heat  - it does, so maybe there's some truth in this idea.

I altered some of the amounts in the recipe, as there seemed to be too much flour in the cake part. I'll certainly make the recipe again, but I'd use less sugar in the topping as it was way too sweet for our tastes.

I should also have tossed the blueberries in some flour before adding them to the cake mixture, as most of them sank to the bottom of the cake.

If you want to try a Buckle, then here's my adapted recipe - the original was in cups, so I converted it to grams, and it worked out fine.

The original recipe came from a book called 'The Big Book of American Recipes' -  it has no named author and was published in 1992

150g sugar

                                                                55g butter [in the original recipe they used shortening]

1 egg

125ml milk

                                       200g plain flour [original used 300g]

                   2 tspns baking powder

   1/2 tspn salt

                   about 250g blueberries

Preheat oven 190c/gas 5

cake mixture - cream the fat and sugar, beat in the egg; mix the baking powder and salt into the flour and add to the mixture, alternating with the milk. Add the blueberries and spoon into a 8" square cake tin, well greased.

   100g sugar

45g flour

  55g butter

                                                1tspn cinnamon [my addition as I love it!]

 topping - rub the fat into the flour and add the sugar and cinnamon. Don't rub it too fine - you need it a bit lumpy. Spoon this over the cake mixture in the tin. Bake for 25-30 mins.

You can see how most of the blueberries have sunk to the bottom of the cake layer.  I loved the contrast between the soft cake layer with the juicy berries and the crunchy topping.  It's a delicious dessert, warm or cold, and OH ate his with cream.

Oh, I forgot to say that a slump and a grunt are the same thing; different parts of the USA use different names for them. It's stewed or baked fruit with a scone-like topping rolled out over the top [or put underneath in some areas with the fruit on top!]. This is one definition of them, but I'm sure other people would disagree and have their own ideas.

Blueberry streusel cake

There seem to be a lot of blueberries on offer in the supermarkets, so decided to buy some to try out a recipe given to me by my friend. She says it's a cross between a blueberry muffin and an old fashioned cheesecake with a cream cheese filling. Sounds interesting. I think the original recipe must be American, as it's called a coffeecake.

Topping:
120g butter, softened
150g sugar
30g brown sugar
60g chopped nuts
11/2 tspn cinnamon
1/2tspn nutmeg

Cream cheese filling:
375g cream cheese
90g sugar
1 egg
grated rind of a lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tspn almond essence

Cake:
500g plain flour
4 tspn baking powder
1 tspn salt
120g butter, softened
300g sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tspn almond essence
300ml milk
750g fresh blueberries

Preheat oven 375F/190C/gas 5

Generously butter a 32x22cm [13x9"] glass baking dish

Topping - rub all the ingredients together till large crumbs.
Filling- soften cheese and beat with the sugar using an electric mixer till creamy. Beat in the egg, lemon rind and juice and almond essence till smooth.
Cake - Put flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In another bowl put the butter and sugar and beat with an electric mixer till light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and then the almond essence.
Beat in rhe flour mixture gently, alternating with some milk, till it's well mixed; if it's too stiff, add a little more milk, then fold in the blueberries.
Spread about half of the mixture on the bottom of the dish, smoothing the top and making sure it's right in the corners. Spread the cheese filling over and sprinkle with about a quarter of the topping. Drop the remaining cake mixture on top by spoonfuls, but try not to mix up the layers! Sprinkle the rest of the topping evenly over the surface.
Bake till the topping is crisp and golden - about 50 mins to 1 hour.
When cool, cut into squares.

The recipe sounds complicated but it isn't. It's a bit of a faff making the topping, but I added the spices to the flour, then rubbed in the butter and sugar and finally the nuts.

I love the cheese filling and the streusel topping which give the cake different textures.

 The reason a glass dish is suggested for cooking is because the blueberries 'could react with metal'. Not sure I agree with this, as I've cooked blueberry cakes many times in a springform tin with no problems. Anyway, I used my glass shepherd's pie dish, which was about the right size.

It's not an every day cake, well not for us anyway, too many calories, but it's a nice cake to make to share with friends, or as a dessert maybe, with some creme fraiche.