Blueberry Cake

Newbury blueberries are little and flavorful.  They're perfect for baking and I recently received a four pound bucket of them.  Enough to make lots of blueberry cake.

I had to chuckle when I pulled out my recipe.  I copied this decades ago from my mother's recipes.  This must have been a recipe she wrote down and not out of a book, because the method was exceedingly terse.  "Fold whites" of course means you've beaten them first.  It never even mentions separating the eggs, it simply says to add yolks to the butter and sugar.  My recipe writing style is much the same - so I've tried to be more verbose here than usual. 

And of course I don't follow it precisely.  I skip flouring my blueberries because I fold them in while they're still frozen.  They stick to the batter, so there's no problem of them sinking while it bakes.  However, it ends up freezing the batter a bit, so baking time is a lot longer.  I think I baked this cake for just over an hour.  Probably didn't help that I threw in a sheet or two of cookies at the same time, with all that opening and closing the oven door.  What's important is that the top turns a golden brown and that a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  I have undercooked this cake before and now err on the side of overcooking it.  I have yet to have get a burned or crumbly cake - it can handle the extra time.

I use two cooling racks when removing it from the pan.  I put the first rack over the top of the pan and flip it, then remove the pan.  Once I've removed the pan, I put the second rack on the bottom of the cake and flip it over again, so the top remains unmarred from the wires.  Not that this cake sticks around long enough to worry how pretty it looks. 

Mom never frosted this cake, so neither do I.  It's delicious as is.  I store it in the fridge and like it best while it's still slightly chilled.  (Rob likes to eat it warmed.)  If you try it, I'd love to know which way you like it best!


Blueberry Cake

1½ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
⅓ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1½ cup blueberries, floured

Preheat oven to 350°.  Grease and flour a 9" round cake pan (better yet, grease then line the bottom with parchment paper). 

In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt.  Set aside.  In another bowl, cream together butter, sugar and egg yolks.  Add vanilla and milk; mix in flour mixture.  In a separate small bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Fold whites into the batter, then blueberries.  Pour into cake pan and spread to the edges.  Bake at 350° for 35-45 minutes until the top is golden brown.  Allow to cool slightly in the pan before turning the cake out on a cooling rack to finish cooling.

It stores well in the refrigerator or the freezer or just eat it all!