Blueberry Cake with Coconut Pecan Streusel Topping

I apologize for the delay with this post, as this is one of my award-winning recipes from the exhibition baking competition I entered in August. This is a new blueberry recipe that appeared in the newspaper, literally the day I was looking for a new blueberry recipe. I love blueberries, they are so fresh, local, and versatile. It was blueberry season, and I was looking for an alternative to the usual blueberry recipes we use - blueberry yogurt cake, blueberry muffins, blueberry coffee cake, and blueberry squares (type any of these terms into this blog's search bar to see them). 

So I saw this recipe, which was different and really appealed to me. It begins with a moist, fluffy, white cake base. Then a thick layer of fresh blueberries. Then a layer of coconut and pecan cinnamon streusel. The streusel provides a great textural contrast, with a buttery flavor and hint of brown sugar and cinnamon. All together, the three layers make a delicious snacking, breakfast, or dessert cake that is delicious straight from the oven, cold, room temperature, or reheated. It makes a fairly good-sized cake that freezes well. Although the recipe has three layers, it is relatively quick and easy to put together, and have in the oven while eating your meal if you plan on serving it for dessert. It doesn't require anything, but a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a small dollop of whipped cream would add a little something extra. 

Blueberry Banana Oat Bars

This is a healthy, not too sweet bar that can be used for dessert, snack, or even breakfast. they hold together well, so could be used as an on-the-go granola bar as well. Some may prefer these with more sugar, but they don't need them. They are all whole grain, with no fat added, and the nice addition of fruit. The maple syrup is a better alternative to sugar, but you don't really taste the maple flavor. Honey could be used instead. 

Blueberry Banana Oat Bars
1 small overripe banana, mashed
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 large egg or 1 flax egg
1/4 cup milk or choice
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon  baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups oats
1/2 cup blueberries (I used frozen)

Preheat oven to 375◦F. Grease or line an 8x8 inch square pan.
In a medium bowl, beat the banana, applesauce, egg, milk, syrup, and vanilla. Stir in the baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and oats. Fold in the blueberries. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes.

Fruit Salad In A Heart

Here is a simple fruit salad I recently made. It's nothing extravagant, or anything a recipe is needed for, but I thought it would make a great, healthy addition to a breakfast or brunch, or even serve as a light dessert. It is a nice light dish to serve in the winter to brighten up a snow-covered world, but it would work well in the summer as well. These days it is not difficult to find just about any type of fruit in the supermarket, no matter what the season, so any fruits could be used. I used oranges, which are considered more of a winter fruit, strawberries since they are readily available and delicious, and local wild blueberries from the freezer. I arranged these three fruits in heart-shaped bowls, and added a small leaf for garnish. 

Overnight Kefir Oatmeal

This is yet another overnight oatmeal. I completely made this one myself, and I basically took everything (well, not everything, but the best things) from the last three overnight oatmeal recipes and put it into this one to make one big, hearty, flavorful, and delicious bowl of cereal. It also has kefir - which I mentioned the benefits of in my kefir smoothie post from two days ago. This is the first time I tried heating up the cereal as well, usually I just eat it cold. But I wasn't going for that with fresh snow on the ground. Since it is coming from a cold fridge, it does take awhile to heat, about three minutes. This could be sped up a little if you transfer the cereal to another bowl, so it won't be cold from the fridge. 

Overnight Kefir Oatmeal
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1 Tablespoon oat bran
1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed
1 Tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut
1 Tablespoon chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup frozen blueberries
1 Tablespoon raisins
1 Tablespoon almond butter
1/4 cup kefir milk
1/2 cup water

In a medium jar or a bowl with a lid, place the first eight dry ingredients and shake to mix. Add in the almond butter, kefir, and water, and stir in. Place in the refrigerator overnight and enjoy in the morning cold or heated. 

The other three overnight oatmeal recipes can be found here:  {Overnight Almond Oatmeal}, {Overnight Apple Spice Oatmeal}, {Overnight Blueberry Oatmeal}.

Blueberry Almond Oatmeal

Blueberry Almond Oatmeal
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 cup water or milk
1/4 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen
1-2 Tablespoons almond butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 Tablespoons almonds

Mix all ingredients except for the almonds in a medium microwave-safe bowl. For an oatmeal with more texture and crunch, use crunchy almond butter and/or stir in a spoonful of chopped almonds. Microwave on medium (50%) power for 2 minutes. Stir, and microwave for an additional 11/2 - 2 minutes on medium power, until thickened and set. Garnish with whole almonds, and additional cinnamon or almond butter if desired. 

This is an oatmeal recipe I created myself on the fly one morning, when I was looking for something a little different. Almonds and blueberries seem to be a good combination, and a hint of cinnamon ties them together. This quick, simple, and piping hot bowl of breakfast contains hearty whole grains, fruit, protein, and calcium if you choose to use milk. It is a complete and tasty breakfast, and far from a bowl of bland oatmeal. 

Easy Berry Sauce

This is a quick and easy recipe to do when you just want a little fruit sauce as a topping or garnish, and need it in a hurry. The berries may easily be varied. I used frozen, though it would probably work with fresh as well. 

Colorful Fruit Sauce
1/2 cup frozen mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries)
1 scant Tablespoon corn starch
1 heaping Tablespoon lemon juice
sugar or honey to sweeten
cinnamon, if desired

Place the berries in a small saucepan over medium heat. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch and juice until smooth, add to berries and increase heat. bring to a boil and boil, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes until thickened. Stir in sugar and cinnamon, if desired. Serve warm or cold. 
The amount of berries can easily be adjusted to make more or less sauce, though you really can't make a batch much smaller than this. The amount of cornstarch and juice should remain relatively the same unless you add more than double the amount of berries, then increase these amounts as well. 

Blueberry Pie Bars

Pie has never been my thing. Neither making it or eating it. Chocolate pies, brownie pies, and Shepherd's pies are all great, but traditional fruit pies are not my forte.  It's usually the crust that gets me. I am not a big fan of pie crust, neither how it tastes nor how to make it. Chocolate crusts, graham crumb crusts, or in this case, shortbread crusts, on the other hand are something I can handle. Especially when they are pressed in a square or rectangular pan - much easier. This is a recipe for blueberry pie bars, which in my opinion are tastier, and also easier to make and serve than a pie.

Blueberry Pie Bars
CRUST
1 1/2 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
3/4 cup granulated (white) sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold butter, cubed
FILLING
2 large eggs
1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt or sour cream
1 cup granulated (white) sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose (plain) flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 325◦F (if using a glass pan) or 350◦F. Line an 8x11 inch rectangular baking pan with parchment paper.
CRUST: In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar and salt. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Set aside 3/4 cup and press the rest firmly into the pan. Bake for 15 minutes.
FILLING: Meanwhile, beat the eggs, then beat in the yogurt, sugar, flour, salt, and cinnamon. Fold in the blueberries. Pour over prepared crust and sprinkle remaining crust mixture on top. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or slightly longer if using frozen blueberries, until just set. Let cool slightly before cutting. These store well in the fridge.

Blueberry Hazelnut Cheesecake Squares

Blueberry Hazelnut Cheesecake Squares
CRUST
1 1/4 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
3/4 cup finely chopped, toasted hazelnuts
1/3 cup granulated (white) sugar
pinch salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
FILLING
2 packages (250 grams/8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup granulated (white) sugar
2 Tablespoons all-purpose (plain) flour
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup heavy cream (milk works too, as long as you use full fat cream cheese)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 325◦F. Butter a 9x9 inch square baking pan.
CRUST: In a large bowl, stir together all ingredients except the butter, then cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press into prepared pan. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden and firm.
FILLING: In a large bowl using a wooden spoon, beat the cream cheese and the sugar. Add the flour, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in cream and extracts, then gently fold in blueberries. Pour onto prepared crust. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until center is just set. Let cool to room temperature for an hour, then cover and refrigerate for at least three hours.

This is a new blueberry recipe I just tried this year! I already knew that cheesecake and blueberries go well together, and I like the combination of blueberries with hazelnuts. All together this makes really nice squares. I usually do not bake with nuts, but hazelnuts are my favorite, and they really add a buttery texture and nice flavor and crunch to these squares. These squares come together fairly easily, and taste really good. It comes from my huge baking book, that I like to refer to as my baking bible. I used one of the tablespoons of flour called for in the recipe to coat the blueberries so they would not sink in the batter. I also found that my pan of cheesecake took a lot longer to bake, maybe because I used an 8x8 inch pan, which would make the batter deeper, but I found it cooked a lot better when I turned up the oven temperature to 350◦F.

Williams - Sonoma. "Blueberry Cheesecake Squares with Hazelnut Crust." Recipe. Essentials of Baking, San Francisco: Oxmoor House, 2003. 152.

Blueberry Season

August is the month when one of my favorite fruits is ripe any ready to pick: blueberries! Blueberry season always brings back memories of picking blueberries in a blueberry field near my grandparent's house with all of my family when we would go down to visit in late August. We don't really get to do that anymore, now we rely on our local Farmer's Market for large boxes of fresh blueberries. Blueberries are a bit of a pain to pick anyway, because they are so small, and often small leaves, twigs, and grass end up in your collection as well, or too many blueberries end up in your mouth. I love baking with blueberries. My mother and I have a few go-to blueberry items we bake every year, which include her special blueberry muffins, and the recipe for blueberry yogurt cake we discovered in our newspaper a few years ago. I also like to try new blueberry recipes each year. Last year I tried Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins and Blueberry & Brown Butter Squares, a bit of a coincidence that they both used brown butter, but that flavor seems to pair very well with blueberries. I still have new recipes using blueberries on my list of baked goods I would like to try, so I will be sure to get to some of them. We keep some blueberries out to use for baking within a few days, and freeze the rest for baking with later on. Blueberries freeze very well, and frozen blueberries are almost interchangeable with fresh in baked items. I tend to use blueberries mostly in breads and muffins and loaves, but they are also good in squares, cakes, and even some savory dishes. And of course they make excellent jam!

PHOTO CREDIT:J-11.jpg" http://gardenofeaden.blogspot.ca/2012/04/how-to-grow-blueberries.html .The Garden of Eaden, n.d. Tuesday, August 14, 2012.

Blueberry Coffee Cake

This delicious-looking baked good is a blueberry coffee cake. It is simple to make, but quite a crowd-pleaser, and it looks quite stunning. That is probably why my mother often makes it for company or as a gift for neighbors and friends. That's very nice of her, but since it is a full coffee cake baked in a tube pan, it might be a bit obvious if we cut a piece or two out of it to enjoy for ourselves. For that reason, our family doesn't often get a taste of this coffee cake when it is baked. We have to suffer through the tantalizing aromas of it baking, and the mouth-watering look of it cooling on a rack, but we don't get to sample it. This cake is very well-suited to give away because it is a nice size and it tastes wonderful. It is conveniently baked in one tube pan, and once it comes out of the oven and cools briefly, it can be easily dumped out onto a paper plate to finish cooling, or it can be given away warm. The cake is especially delicious warm. It would be nice with a little whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, but it really doesn't need it. The cake is chock full of blueberries (we use frozen for convenience purposes, and so it can be made all year round), and is quite moist. It has a sweet stresuel on top, made from butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. The addition of blueberries makes it a bit different from a typical coffee cake, but anyone who likes blueberries will really appreciate this clever addition. I really like this coffee cake, and hopefully there will be a piece left for me this time!

Blueberry & Brown Butter Squares

Blueberry & Brown Butter Squares. If this sounds familiar to you, you are probably remembering the Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins I made on August 24. Well, these recipes are quite similar, as they use the same concept and ingredients. The muffins were so delicious, when I came across this square recipe I just had to try it! I guess blueberries and brown butter are a winning combination!

I found some significant differences in the two recipes. There is less butter used in the squares, but the butter is browned a lot longer than the muffins. The muffins call for 1/2 cup of butter cooked for 2-3 minutes until nutty smelling and browned. The squares call for 1/3 cup of butter cooked for 6-7 minutes until deep, golden brown and fragrant. The squares method is definitely the way to go. I found the brown butter taste in the blueberry muffins quite weak, but in the squares it was highly detectable, yet not overwhelming.

These squares start with a soft, moist base piled high with fresh blueberies, and finished off with a cinnamon-streusel topping. They are absolutely divine!

Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins

These are Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins from Woman's Day Magazine, and they are delicious! Brown butter is a step in the recipe where you melt the butter in a saucepan, and then cook it for a few minutes more until it is brown and smells nutty. This gives a deeper, rich aroma and taste to the finished muffins. Browning the butter sounds like an extra step, but the results are definitely worth it! It's easy, and it really doesn't take any longer; just let the butter melt in the saucepan as you whisk together the dry ingredients. I like these better than the usual blueberry muffins I make!

Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup milk
1 large egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

Heat oven to 400◦F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or coat with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and 1/2 cup of the sugar; make a well in the center.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once it melts, swirl the pan until the butter begins to brown and smell nutty, 2 to 3 minutes; remove from heat.

Pour the butter, milk and egg into the well of flour and stir to combine (a few lumps are OK - don't overmix); fold in the blueberries. Divide the batter among the muffin cups; sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 16 to 20 minutes.

“Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins.” http://www.womansday.com/recipe-search/find/keyword-brown%20butter%20blueberry%20muffins/. Woman's Day, n.d. Wednesday, August 24, 2011.

Blueberry Heaven!

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, it is blueberry season and that means indulging in as many fresh blueberries as humanly possible! Due to a recent purchase of a five kilogram box of fresh blueberries from the local farmers market, there are plenty of blueberries in the house to go around! The berries were sorted through on the weekend; a bowlful of fresh berries were set aside for eating out of hand, a container of fresh berries was kept for baking, and the squishy berries were set aside and turned into jam. Here is the small jar of jam and some of the fresh blueberries being saved for tomorrow's baking.

The remaining blueberries were frozen, enabling us to add blueberries to baked goods all year round. Ahh, blueberries bring back memories to when my family and I used to go blueberry picking every summer when we visited my grandparents. Even those who didn't like blueberries (gasp) would join us. That way, at least some blueberries ended up in the baskets and not just in our stomachs. Blueberry picking was fun, peaceful, and enjoyable. I didn't even mind coming home and having to pick through them and clean them. That was quite therapeutical too!

Yesterday my mother and I made blueberry yogurt cake. Tomorrow, we will be making another baked blueberry delight, blueberry muffins. We have decided to step away from our standard blueberry muffin recipe to try something new. We came across a recipe for brown butter blueberry muffins in a magazine. This recipe not only looked mouthwatering, the concept also very much intrigued us. So, we are trying something different this blueberry season, and who knows, maybe it will become a blueberry traditon too! I'll let you know tomorrow in my post.

Blueberry Yogurt Cake

Ahh, blueberry season! You gotta love it. Here is the perfect recipe to use up some fresh blueberries. My mother and I made it together this morning before it got too hot. The recipe was featured in a local newspaper years ago, and we have been making it every year at blueberry season ever since. It is delicious piping hot from the oven, slightly warm, room temperature, slightly chilled, cold, or reheated in the microwave; I have tried it every way, and I still cannot pick a favourite! It also freezes very well and will keep for several months in an airtight container in the freezer. It can be covered and stored at room temperature for a day or two, but since blueberry season tends to be very hot, we like to keep it in the refrigerator; it will last for a few days longer.

Blueberry Yogurt Cake
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter or hard margarine, softened
1 cup granulated (white) sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup plain (not vanilla) yogurt (not fat free)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 325◦F. Grease a 9x13 inch pan (we use glass).
In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon, set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, bating well after each addition. Add yogurt and vanilla, beat. Sift in flour, baking soda, and salt, beat until smooth. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Spread half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar-cinnamon mixture evenly over top of batter in pan. Carefully and evenly spread with the remaining batter. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until cake is a light golden brown, a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, and cake springs back when pressed.

The recipe also reccommends to dust with icing sugar before serving, but we don't bother with that, it really doesn't need it. It also includes 1/2 cup chopped almonds in with the brown sugar-cinnamon filling. We don't do that either, but you can try it if you like. Enjoy!