Blueberry Cupcake

 

I love a blueberry cake and have not been able to make it just like shop bought ones. I guess we try not to use that much butter and sugar which is probably the reason. Then we found an easy to make blueberry muffin recipe and thought to give this cake a try. Also, from previous baking of cakes we found it cuts the cooking time down if instead of a cake tin, we bake in the muffin tray. It also helps in equal sharing of the cake as generally it is either 6 or 12 cupcakes made. 

While mixing the cake dough we realised that the recipe actually was not accurate as the liquid was not adequate and so we adapted to get the right consistency and the result was excellent cake.

Ingredients

 2½ cups (375g) of sifted self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup (220g) raw sugar

½ cup (125ml) olive oil

1 egg

½ cup (125ml) milk

½ cup (125 ml) of butter milk 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

300g fresh or frozen blueberries

1 table spoon of self-raising flour

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).

Place the flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl.

Place the oil, egg, milk, butter milk and vanilla in a separate bowl and whisk to combine.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. 

Add the table spoon of flour to the blueberries and stir to cover each berry with the flour. 

Add the blueberries to the dough and mix to combine.

Oil the cups of the 2 silicon muffin trays.

Spoon mixture equally into the 12 cups.

Bake the cupcakes for 15 mins. Check at 10 mins to make sure the cupcakes are cooking evenly. If need be, rotate the tray to ensure even cooking.

Leave the tray to cool on the rack. 

Once the tray is cooled enough to handle remove the cupcakes and cool on a wire rack. 

Tips

If you do not have buttermilk handy, you can take a heaped tablespoon of plain yogurt and add some milk or water to make it to 125 ml of buttermilk.

Depending on the quality of the flour you might need a little more milk to get the right consistency.

Coating the berries with flour stops the fruit from breaking open and bleeding the colour into the cake.

While the silicon trays do not need oiling it helps to do so, as the cupcakes pop out cleanly by pushing the base. The cupcake has a raised top so pushing the cake up by the base ensures that it maintains its shape.

Blueberry Yogurt Cake

When we go to Fairfield there are 2 places to visit. One is the chemist warehouse to increase my stash of drugs and other is the fruit and veg shop. They have a huge variety of fruit and veg that is also cheaper in comparison to the supermarkets. This shop also does tinned produce and bit of deli, breads and biscuits and so on. One day I saw a blueberry cake and since I love blueberries we decided to buy it. It was delicious but the next visit of course there was no cake. Why is it that once you like something it always gets discontinued?

So I asked my husband if he could concoct one. He loves to bake and tries his hand at all sorts of desserts and cakes. So he found a recipe and made a blueberry cake. That one tasted fine but the blue had bled across the cake and the texture was more moist than required. The next time he made a chocolate cake and added blueberries into it. Now that one was also yummy but not quite the same. Yesterday he tried a different recipe and that one has come closest to the taste of that shop bought one but knowing what is in the cake I can say it is definitely a healthier version.

Ingredients:

125g of softened butter

1 cup (225 gm) of caster sugar

2 medium eggs

1 cup (225 gm) self-rising flour

3/4 cup (175 ml) plain yogurt

250 gm of frozen blueberries

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C or 160C for a fan-oven. Grease a 20cm (base) round cake tin. Line base and side with Greece proof paper.
• Beat butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. It is certainly easier and faster to use an electric mixer.
• Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating till it combines with the mixture. Sift half the flour over mixture. Stir to combine. Add half the yoghurt and stir again to combine. Repeat with remaining flour and yoghurt.
• Spread mixture into prepared pan. Sprinkle with blueberries. Press blueberries lightly into mixture. Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean (cover cake loosely with foil if over-browning during baking).
• Stand in pan for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve with yoghurt if desired.

Tips:

You can use 225ml of olive oil instead of eggs. Again the oil amount can be reduced by substituting it with a little more yogurt.

I hope you enjoy the cake as much as I do.