blueberry

Blueberry Angel Food Cake

May 24, 2018

Angel food cake was my go-to dessert in college. Mainly because it was a tad healthier than your average cake, but also because the boxed cake mix made it easy to make at home.

Angel food cake has a reputation for being difficult to make from scratch. But I’m here to tell you, it’s really not! It definitely took me a while to build up the courage to ditch the boxed mix and make it from scratch, but once I did I realized it really isn’t so bad.

Plus, when you make it from scratch at home you can play around with the recipe and make it your own! Like adding in blueberries!

Well, freeze dried blueberries.

Which make a super delicious and subtly flavored blueberry angel food cake.

How to Make It

First things first. Process the blueberries until they form a fine powder. You can do this by processing them in a food processor or by tossing them in a zip-top bag and giving them a good wack.

Next, sift all the dry ingredients together. It’s super important to sift everything because you want it to be as light as possible.

Then start making the meringue which is the foundation of the cake.

Slowly start beating the egg whites until a little bit of foam forms, then add the cream of tartar and lemon juice.

After a little more foam builds, add in about a third of the sugar. Beat for another 30 seconds or so and add a little more sugar. Finally, when the egg whites are almost done, add in the rest of the sugar.

The meringue should be in medium stiff peak form, meaning it can form a peak, but the tips fall over.

Now slowly fold the dry ingredients into the meringue a little at a time. Try not to deflate the meringue.

Spoon the batter into your cake pan, or in my case, a mini cake pan, then bake until a toothpick comes out clean. It takes about 15-20 for the small pan and 30-35 for a standard pan.

Once out of the oven, let the cake cool upside down over a cooling rack or balanced on a wine bottle. This helps ensure that your cake doesn’t deflate and lose all that beautiful air you worked so hard to incorporate into the cake.

If all of those things are done well, you should have yourself a beautiful, light, airy, and delicious blueberry angel food cake! Perfect for any occasion, or just to make for yourself.

You definitely don’t have to worry about the guilt with this recipe. It is about as “light” as any cake can be! Plus, it probably packs a full serving of fruit thanks to those freeze-dried blueberries.

Tools and Recipe

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Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies

February 24, 2017

What is it about baked blueberries. I mean, they are great all on their own. But baked into a muffin, cupcake, or pie and they are fantastic! You think it has something to do with the flour, sugar, and butter it’s baked in?

Yeah, me neither.

Well, these blueberry oatmeal cookies are no exception. In fact, they may be my new favorite blueberry baked good. Ever. Move over blueberry muffin, there’s a new star around here!

Despite what you may be thinking, there isn’t anything all that special about these cookies except the blueberries. I started off with my favorite oatmeal cookie recipe, and instead of adding cinnamon, raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, or anything else you might add to oatmeal cookies, I added some fresh lemon zest and fresh blueberries.

After the blueberries were folded into the dough, I scooped them out using my favorite cookie scoop onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

[PSA: If you aren’t covering your baking sheets with parchment when you bake you are doing yourself a HUGE disservice. Not only to they ensure that your cookies will lift right off, but you don’t have to clean your baking sheet afterwards (unless you really want to)! I just just crumple up my parchment and throw it away!]

Then I baked these cookies just like normal and 15 minutes later they came out of the oven looking and tasting delicious!

They kind of reminded me of a blueberry muffin top, which as you know is the best part of any muffin. They are crunchy around the edges and soft in the middle. The blueberries burst with flavor every time you bite into them. And the lemon zest just makes everything taste super fresh.

I think I ate half a dozen of these blueberry oatmeal cookies before I stop myself from eating any more. I hadn’t actually baked these for me, I baked the cookies for a friend of mine who recently had her first baby! These blueberry oatmeal cookies are especially great for new, breastfeeding, moms because there is no chocolate (and, thus, caffeine), and the oatmeal is really good for breast milk production (so I am told by Google).

But don’t wait until your friends have babies to make these cookies. You should make them immediately and thank me later.

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Brown Butter Blueberry Banana Bread

June 22, 2016

This Brown Butter Blueberry Banana Bread post is brought to you by the letter B. Actually, it’s brought to you by gigantic container of blueberries on sale at Trader Joe’s. Last weekend when I was out grocery shopping I picked up 2 lbs of blueberries because they were “a good deal”. Once I got home I realized I had no idea how I was going to use all of them! I could have made blueberry muffins, but I looked around my kitchen and saw 3 brown bananas on my counter, so blueberry banana bread it was.

To make this banana bread even better, I decided to brown some butter to add to this batter. Not only because I love alliteration, but also because brown butter is delicious. It’s even more delicious than regular butter. When butter browns, it gets this toasty, nutty flavor that really adds so much flavor to whatever you put it in or on.

It also helps that browning butter is very easy! All I do to brown butter is melt the butter in a sauce pan on medium heat and then let it simmer until it turns a nice amber color, like you see above. It only takes about 5 minutes to get the it perfectly brown.

So I added the brown butter to the batter and once it was all mixed I folded in the blueberries. To prevent the blueberries from sinking to the bottom, I tossed them in some flour first before mixing them in. Then I poured the batter to a loaf pan lined with parchment so that I could easily remove the loaf from the pan when it was cool.

The bread took about an hour to bake, then I left it out on the counter for another hour to cool before I sliced into it.

I have to admit that I am not really a banana bread person, so maybe I am not the best person to judge this bread. But I did eat the small end slice and was pleasantly surprised! The crust on top was a tad crunchy, and the bread in the center was pillowy soft. The banana flavor was subtle (because I only used partially browned bananas, not completely browned bananas) and was perfectly complimented by the nutty brown butter flavor and the tart blueberries.

The true test for this banana bread was taking it in to work. Between the co-worker whose wife is in culinary school and the other at-home bakers like me, we seem to always have some home-baked goodies in the kitchen. Which means that I have some very spoiled and picky co-workers when it comes to baked goods. I knew that if someone tried this and didn’t like it, word would spread and I would be left throwing half a loaf away at the end of the day.

The good news was the bread was gone by 10 am. Which means I can safely assume that it was a hit. Actually, I don’t have to assume…people came by my desk to tell me they had a piece and loved it.

So if you love banana bread you will love this recipe! If you kinda like banana bread, even you will probably really like this recipe. If it can win over someone like me who it not generally a banana bread fan, it must be pretty stinkin’ good.

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Mini Protein Blueberry Muffins

September 4, 2014

I have made more than a few muffin recipes. Okay ten. Not including this one.

I like muffins, okay?! They can as healthy or as unhealthy as you want. They are fairly fool proof. And who doesn’t like a good muffin. Definitely a crowd pleaser, which means they are great to take into work or to your friend who just became a new mom. Which is who these muffins were made for.

A friend of mine ended up having her baby this past weekend (Labor Day weekend, how fitting), so I wanted to make her something healthy, yummy, and no-fuss to eat this week since she will have her hands full!

I won’t go into the muffin basics, since I have done that plenty of times in other posts. But one trick I wanted to share with you, was to toss your berries in flour before mixing them into the batter.

Doing that will ensure that they don’t sink to the bottom of the muffin tin. Nothing is worse than getting a muffin and all the berries are all stuck to the bottom.

This recipe is a bit different than my basic muffin batter in that I added protein powder to it and used even more Greek yogurt to bump up that protein factor. I also used substituted half the flour for whole wheat flour.

I have never had a baby or been a mom, so I can’t tell you what to eat after giving birth. But I would think that a new mom would want to be eating healthy, and if they are breastfeeding, they need to keep their energy up. I think these muffins will be perfect for my friend, since she can just nibble on one of these minis whenever she has a hand free.

What other food items or meals would be great to make for a new-mom?

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