I have a weakness for everyday cakes. They aren’t fancy, they aren’t iced and decorated, they’re just simple and sweet and ready to be sliced up for guests or, as is often the case at Chateaû Amanda, sliced up for breakfast, dinner, and midday snacks. Not that you can’t do that with the fancier versions. Birthday cake for breakfast? Awesome.
Anyway, this is the second buttermilk recipe. The original fruit used in this cake was raspberries, which is actually my favorite fruit to bake with, but the grocery store, being lame, had nothing but blueberries. No matter, it worked just as well, though I’m definitely going to try raspberries.
Blueberry Buttermilk Cake
Via Smitten Kitchen
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup fresh blueberries (about 5 oz)
Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about two minutes, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. Add egg and beat well.
At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter blueberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.
Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more.
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Red Velvet is (apparently) my girlfriend’s favorite cake, and I would love to say that I made it for her, but in reality she lives 3000 miles away in California – where the weather is currently much, much nicer – so this batch of cupcakes is all for me.
Which is probably not really all that great for my thighs.
This recipe is from Bakerella, and is incredibly, incredibly moist with an almost runny batter that made my stovetop look like the site of a massacre. They bake up deep red and soft, and look perfect with a huge dollop of cream cheese frosting on top. If this was actually for Valentine’s Day – when I started thinking about these – I might have tinted the frosting pink, but as February ends tomorrow, it stayed white. Regardless, the cupcakes look so good that I’ve already had two.
I halved the recipe, but the whole thing is posted here. I made a dozen cupcakes, a full batch would make twenty-four.
Red Velvet Cupcakes
Courtesy of Bakerella
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. red food coloring
Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside.
Mix together flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa with a wire whisk and set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring until completely combined. Add wet ingredients to dry, and beat until blended and smooth.
Pour into prepared muffin tins and bake for twenty minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool, and prepare cream cheese frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 C butter, at room temperature
8 oz of cream cheese, at room temperature
1 t almond extract
2-3 C confectioner’s sugar
Beat butter and cream cheese together until thoroughly blended. Add extract and blend again. Add sugar until you reach your desired consistency and sweetness.
Spread or pipe onto cupcakes.
Perfect for a special occasion. Also perfect for a Saturday night when you’re not in the mood to do anything productive. Which is most Saturday nights at my place.
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