Blueberry Compote Cupcakes

 

While I was in the middle of Sugar-Free September I wanted to make a cake to take into the design agency I work with as I was spending a day working with them. I always take cake and didn't want them to miss out just because I wasn't eating sweet treats, so I had a good idea: to make a cake I didn't like and wouldn't eat!

I had some blueberries in the freezer that I'd been given and I don't really like blueberries (even in muffins). I've got a gorgeous-looking recipe book I've hardly used, called Cox Cookies & Cake - it was a pop-up (or in any case relatively short-lived) bakery in London's Soho that was a collaboration between baker Eric Lanlard and fashion designer Patrick Cox, that had very glamorous, decadent - and sometimes slightly naughty (cupcake toppers of topless men or showgirl legs) treats. I remember fondly going there with a friend while we were shopping in Soho for Halloween party costumes a few years ago.

Reminiscing aside, the book had a recipe for blueberry compote cupcakes, which looked perfect. I made the blueberry compote from scratch and used it to fill the middle of the cakes before they were baked - which was a bit unusual as normally I'd add a jam filling after the cakes were baked, but this seemed to work really well - not that I actually tried one, but I had very good feedback from the team!

To make 12 cupcakes, you need:
2 eggs
200g caster sugar
125ml sunflower oil
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
250g plain flour
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
250ml soured cream

for the blueberry frosting;
150g blueberries
50g caster sugar

for the buttercream:
250g butter, softened
500g icing sugar
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
and I added a few drops of blue food colouring as well

 

Make the blueberry compote first; I actually did this the day before. Heat the blueberries and sugar in a saucepan, over a low heat and stirring well, until the sugar has dissolved and the blueberries softened. I let mine cool and put in a container with a lid in the fridge overnight.

Preheat oven to 200C/ 180C fan. Beat the eggs and the sugar and gradually pour in the oil, mixing well. Add the vanilla extract, then fold in the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir in the soured cream.

Put paper cake cases into a muffin tin and put one large tablespoon of the cake mixture into each cake case then put 1 tsp of the compote on top.

Fill the rest of the paper case until 2/3 full with the rest of the cake mixture.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes and allow to cool.

Beat the butter with the icing sugar and add the other ingredients; using a piping bag with a small star nozzle, pipe the buttercream onto the top of the cupcakes.

I'm sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer.

Lorraine Pascale's Blueberry and Limoncello Drizzle Cake

 

I have a great relationship with my personal trainer. She pushes me hard, but not too hard; she's encouraging, we have a good chat while I'm working out and she isn't draconian when it comes to diet. To prove th point, she hinted that since I like baking I could make her a cake for her birthday, which was the day after mine.

She'd told me she liked loaf cakes and I decided I wanted to make something that wasn't too unhealthy, so would involve less sugar than some cakes, not have piles of frosting, and include fruit but have an indulgent quality at the same time - it was her 40th birthday so a special occasion after all.

I turned to Lorraine Pascale's book A Lighter Way to Bake and found a recipe for a blueberry and limoncello drizzle cake, which ticked all those boxes - it wasn't a loaf cake but as it wasn't filled I decided there was no reason why I couldn't bake it in a loaf tin.

The recipe can be found online here; I had some blueberries in the freezer from a previous recipe and since I don't like them this was a good opportunity to use them up; I already had about a quarter of a bottle of limoncello left, I think from the Christmas before last, so the only ingredients I therefore had to buy was a little tub of yogurt and two lemons.

Making the batter

Adding the blueberries

ready to go in the oven

Here's the cake!

about to make the icing

drizzling over the icing

The cake took a bit longer to bake than the time given in the recipe; if you do it in a loaf tin the best thing is to keep testing it with a skewer.

I gave it to my personal trainer the day before her birthday when we had a gym session (actually on my birthday, I'm that dedicated!) and she said afterwards she and her friends really enjoyed it.

This isn't the cheapest recipe to make but for me it was pretty frugal as I was using up blueberries and limoncello I already had, which is quite a thrifty approach, so I'm sending this to Credit Crunch Munch. This month the challenge is hosted by Michelle at Utterly Scrummy and was devised by Helen and Camilla.

Blueberry Cheesecake Brownies

Doesn’t the name alone sound indulgent?

 

I realised that despite launching The Brownie Blog a few months ago I haven’t made brownies – or posted anything on that blog – in ages. I had some blueberries left over from another recipe (these chocolate blueberry cakes) and I also had some of the blueberry flavour icing that I’d made up from a packet from Sugar & Crumbs as I’d made a little too much. I wondered if I could incorporate the two into brownies and remembered seeing some nice brownie recipes in my Hummingbird Bakery book. They had a recipe for raspberry cheesecake brownies so I decided to borrow that idea, using blueberries instead, but rather than blending the blueberries into cream to go on top, I used the leftover blueberry icing.
 

These are pretty easy to make – I knocked them up in about an hour around 10pm one evening!

 

You can find the recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery book or online on GoodtoKnow (the website for various women’s magazines including Essentials), so I won’t repeat it all here. I will instead describe what I did.

 

To start, make the brownie base. The Hummingbird recipe uses icing sugar instead of caster sugar which gave the brownies a different texture; they were nice (especially when they were a day or so old) but if I made this again I would probably use a more traditional brownie recipe for the base.

 

 

Preheat oven to 170C. Melt 200g chocolate (the recipe calls for plain, but I used milk chocolate) – I did it in the microwave. Cream 200g butter or margarine with 250g icing sugar then add 3 eggs and 110g plain flour. Stir in the melted chocolate.

 

Pour into a square baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.

 

Next make the cheesecake layer – mix 400g cream cheese (not the low fat kind), 150g icing sugar, dash of vanilla flavouring and two eggs until you have a smooth mixture. Pour over the top of the brownie layer and then bake in the oven. I found mine took a lot longer than the recipe called for so I’d advise baking for about 40 minutes then checking it to see if the cheesecake is still wobbly or the brownie still raw. You don’t want it to go brown on top but it does need to be cooked through – I think mine took about an hour.

 

Leave to cool; if you want the fruit and cream topping see the recipe instructions (link as above); I spread the remainder of my Sugar & Crumbs blueberry icing on the top of the cheesecake layer and topped with my leftover blueberries.

 

This sliced easily into squares – I cut it into fairly small pieces since each piece was quite deep. I took them into work and they were very popular!

I'm sharing these with the Vegetable Palette Challenge, hosted by Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen; the idea is to use fruit or veg in the chosen colour each month and this month she has chosen blue and purple.

 

Mini Vegan Chocolate Blueberry Cakes

Sugar & Crumbs, a maker of flavoured icing sugar, recently sent me a few samples to try, including a tiny amount of blueberry flavoured buttercream. When I saw that the chosen ingredient for We Should Cocoa this month is blueberries, I decided to order a bag of the icing sugar and incorporate that into a recipe.

A little while ago I was in a café and saw some really cute stacked cakes that were like mini Victoria sponges, but cupcake sized. I thought these would be fun to make for a barbecue when I had some friends over including a vegan so found one of my most successful vegan chocolate cake recipes so far, which you can find here.

I baked them as cupcakes, and when they had cooled carefully sliced off the top of the cupcake as it was domed, so I had several flat discs of cake.

I made up the icing which just involves mixing the icing with softened butter but I used vegan margarine; the flavoured icing sugar itself is suitable for vegans. It has a lovely blueberry taste but I decided I wanted it to be blue in colour as well so added a few drops of food colouring.



I then used some of the buttercream to sandwich the cakes together and placed a circle of fresh blueberries on the icing in the middle of the cakes. It did make the cakes a little hard to keep upright though! I decorated some of them with blueberries on top as well but as the cakes were in danger of falling over decided not to do it on all of them!

I'm sending this to We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette of Tin and Thyme, as the chosen ingredient this month is blueberry.

I'm also sharing these with Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Jane at the Hedgecombers as I made these for a barbecue which is their theme this month.

For the same reason I'm sending this to Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat aka the Baking Explorer as their theme is summertime.

Queen Cakes / Blueberry Muffins

I have a lot of cookery books. I realised that again when Dom at Belleau Kitchen published this month's random recipe challenge, and asked us to turn to the 40th page of our 40th book and make whatever was on that page. My recipe books are in alphabetical order - thanks to my boyfriend when he was bored on evening - and I counted along; when I got to 40 I was still only as far as the letter E!

The book in question was Easy Cupcakes from Marks & Spencer and on page 40 were Queen Cupcakes. I'd never heard of them before and there was no explanation for the name; they seem to be simple cupcakes baked with currants. However, I had some blueberries in the fridge that needed using up - and I don't like blueberries on their own - so I thought Dom wouldn't mind if I adapted the recipe a bit!

Makes 12

You need:

115g butter, softened

115g caster sugar

2 eggs

4 tsp lemon juice

175g self-raising flour

100g blueberries, halved

3 tbsp milk

This is a very simple recipe. Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl them mix in the eggs. Add the lemon juice, mix in the flour, with a dash of milk to loosen the batter, then fold in the blueberries.

Spoon into muffin cases and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.

The recipe for the Queen Cakes does not involve any icing or decoration and as I decided to take these to a volunteering day I was doing with colleagues, I thought that would work well- I needed something that I could transport in a box in my rucksack that wouldn't be too messy. The cakes had a muffin-like texture and went down very well when we had a break in a hard day's work - we were building a cob oven and an irrigation system in a community garden. It was great fun!

I'm sending these to Random Recipes, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen.

Family Foodies, hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Vanesther at Bangers and Mash, has as a theme this month barbecues, picnics and outdoor eating. These cakes or muffins are so easy to eat outdoors with no mess; they travel well and taste great too!

Ness at Jibber Jabber UK is looking for vintage cake recipes this month. Queen cakes are - from what I can find out - a very traditional old-fashioned kind of cake so I think that counts!

Blueberries are in season so I'm sending this to Simple and in Season, hosted by Ren Behan.

I am also sending this to Chris at Cooking Around The World - he has an exciting blog challenge relating to the world cup. England are playing today and my Queen Cakes are quintessentially British.