Baking Adventure #21

The weather in Atlanta lately has been amazing. Picture clear blue skies, a slight breeze, 78 degrees and sunshine from dawn until dusk. After all of the rain we had from fall through early spring, the nice weather has been a true blessing.

With that being said, we had a pretty gnarly storm come through and wash away all of the pollen late Friday night through late Saturday night. As a result, Saturday brought a day of errands and Lifetime movies on the couch (every girl loves to indulge in these from time to time, don't judge me). Since there was no avoiding the 100% chance of rain forecasted, an Avatar movie night was planned for the evening. Neither my friend nor I had seen it before and we decided to get creative and have a blue-theme to our snacks. He supplied blue corn tortilla chips and salsa, and I whipped up something yummy... *big surprise* Any excuse I can get to bake and be creative, I'll gladly take! What baked good went with the blue theme, you ask?

AVATAR BLUE(BERRY) CUPCAKES

Of course! I used a simple white cake mix purchased back in February at an Amish market in Ohio as my base. [This was cheating a little but I was baking at midnight Friday night, mind you, and felt like experimenting with additions and not the basic mix itself. Next time, the white cake will be derived from scratch as well.]

As part of my experimenting, I added fresh blueberries, a touch of lemon juice, and blue food coloring (to half of the cupcakes). Tip for folding in fresh blueberries: toss them in a little bit of flour to keep them from settling on the bottom of the batter prior to baking.

Once the batter was to my liking, I spooned it into the cupcake liners.

Then baked at 375 for approximately 15 minutes (or until the tops were firm) then let cool completely.

While the cupcakes were cooling, the experiment continued... Cream cheese frosting is my ABSOLUTE favorite of all the frostings, but I wanted this to also involve blueberries. So I made the frosting according to my usual recipe (cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar) then added the blueberries I had crushed... This sounds good in theory, no? Unfortunately, the resulting frosting was a bit runny (SERIOUSLY, runny frosting is becoming my arch-nemesis when it comes to baking!)... so I decided to wrap up the cupcakes and stick the frosting in the freezer overnight to firm up... Not the best idea. The next day (once the frosting thawed) it was back to its original consistency and just altogether not worthy of the "Pint-Size Baker" stamp of approval.

Thus, after a few choice words with myself [you know you talk to yourself too], I scraped the frosting off of the few cupcakes already frosted, dumped the entire bowl into the sink, and started over from scratch. Let me back up a little... after sticking the frosting in the freezer to set over night, I stayed up until 2am researching how to make frosting thicker. There aren't many tips for thickening cream cheese frosting; however, I did find a minor tweak suggestion and went to town on the new frosting and what do you know... IT WORKED! This batch ended up being my best yet in terms of consistency! Check out the final product below:

[Trying to improve my presentation skills... What do you think?]

And that's it for now folks! Baking Adventure #23 has already been determined but I need a #22 for next week. Please leave your recommendations in the comments section! I'll select one and bake it next week for you.

[Double] Blueberry Cornbread update

Ok folks... I have some sad new for you...

As delicious as the [Double] Blueberry Cornbread was, it was no match for the moisture that arose from the blueberries and humidity in Atlanta. After only 3 days since creation, the cornbread has suffered a fateful death in the trash receptacle. *tear* This brings great sadness to not only myself but my father as well as this was to be his breakfast each morning this week.

Why such a short-lived baked good? There's a little disease the resides among baked goods and eventually, given enough time, will take over them all if not consumed in ample time. This disease is better known as...

You might want to sit down for this...

MOLD!!!!!!!!!!! [insert gasps here]

Yes, ladies and gentleman, the beautiful and wonderfully delicious Double Blueberry Cornbread grew a beautiful BLUE mold to color-coordinate with the fruit inside. It's a sad day, but fret not! There will be more baking to be had this very weekend!!!

Until then, rest in peace Double Blueberry Cornbread. You were loved by many. Please feel free to leave your condolences in the Comments below.

Double Blueberry Cornbread is survived by its dutiful companion Honey Butter.

Baking Adventure #2

Fall is officially here, which means there are some amazingly delicious fruits and vegetables that are in their prime right now: apples, figs, pumpkins, squash, and BLUEBERRIES!!! (to name a few) Blueberries are extremely good for you as they are high in anti-oxidants, not to mention that they're absolutely delicious. Thus the reasoning behind my search for the best way to utilize their magnificentness. (In case you haven't noticed, I like to make up words.)

When searching for the recipe, I kept coming back to this Blueberry Tart recipe by Paula Deen. However, I have kind of been sweeted out lately and wanted to find something with blueberries as the star but a non-sweet/dessert. This was not an easy task until the other night my dad was having a conversation with a friend about how much he loved cornbread, but he also mentioned blueberry cornbread. Now, the "AH HA!" moment did not hit until about 5 days later while sitting at work to put two and two together, but I'm sure glad it did.

After doing some research online and reading through various recipes of simple cornbread and cornbread with jalapenos and cornbread stuffing, I finally found a blueberry cornbread recipe that struck my fancy. So without further ado, allow me to introduce this post's baking adventure...

[Double] Blueberry Cornbread

As you can see from the link above, the recipe is pretty simple. There wasn't much prep beyond purchasing the ingredients and rinsing the blueberries. However, one thing to note when purchasing the Yellow Cornmeal for this recipe, make sure it is not the "mix". The "yellow cornmeal mix" already has baking soda, salt, and flour added. Your final product would be too salty and just a mess. Use "PLAIN" Yellow Cornmeal.

Now, the recipe states you can simply increase the amount of cornmeal to sub for not having masa flour. My grocery did in fact have masa flour, but the bag was as big as my head and I'm not baking for 200, so I opted to follow the side note about increasing Yellow Cornmeal.

Once the wet ingredients and dry ingredients have been mixed and blended in their corresponding bowls, it's time to stir them in together. Pretty simple! After fully saturating the dry ingredients in the wet, it was time to add the star ingredient: 1 cup of BLUEBERRIES!

HOWEVER, after gently folding in the blueberries to the cornbread mixture, I decided this was certainly not enough to make such a wonderful fruit stand out, so I dumped in the rest of the pint... What could go wrong right?

After greasing the 8"x8" square pan and pouring in the batter, it was time for the oven. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 min? Sure! No problem; I'll just clean up the kitchen while the DOUBLE blueberry cornbread bakes...

25 minutes later, I stick in the wooden skewer (ref. my Baking Adventure #1 post about wood vs. plastic or other materials)... and what do I find (much to my dismay)... the skewer comes out with batter on it, which means back in the oven to bake for a while longer!

After about 40-45 minutes of baking (checking every 5 min to see that it doesn't over bake), the skewer FINALLY comes out clean when placed in the middle of the blueberry cornbread.

Next, it's time to cool and relax, then enjoy!

THE END...

Or was it? After the cornbread cooled, I tasted a little sample and wasn't terribly pleased. The cornbread was decently moist but didn't exude much flavor or sweetness. (The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of sugar, which would leave one to believe it might be a sweeter cornbread... not so much.) Time to put my creative baking hat on and think... what goes well with warm cornbread? BUTTER... ok, got that... what is this double blueberry cornbread lacking? SUGAR... BY GEORGE I'VE GOT IT!!!

HONEY BUTTER!!! I returned to the grocery to buy some honey and got to work combining 1/2 stick of softened butter (aka 4 tablespoons or 1/4 cup) with 1 tablespoon of honey. After blending, the honey butter went back in the fridge to let it set. Let me tell you, I haven't had a more delicious butter in my life. (Secret: I always use salted butter even if the recipe calls for unsalted.)

After I found the magical solution to an otherwise mediocre Double Blueberry Cornbread, it was off to mom and dad's to surprise dad and see if it passed his stamp of approval. I warmed up the bread in the microwave and then topped it with the honey butter and served... DAD LOVED IT!!! I think he spoiled his dinner that mom would be cooking for us in a couple hours, but it was worth it. hehe

Ok, that's it for this baking adventure! Hope you have enjoyed! Not sure what the next one will be yet, possibly something with Figs as I've only eaten them a couple times raw and many times in Fig Newtons.

Next baking adventure has been determined!`

Stay tuned folks!

I've been going through recipes upon recipes the past week or so wanting to bake something with blueberries while trying to think outside the box and not do a dessert...

Last night it hit me! A convo with my dad about a week ago resurfaced in my brain, and I know exactly what I'll be making. Sorry to tease, but I must leave it as a surprise as my dad might be reading this and gotta keep you coming back right? :-) RIGHT!

Additional teaser: The blueberry, baked, non-dessert amazingness will be baked this weekend!!!