Three

From Augie's 3rd Birthday

Augie turned three on Tuesday, January 4th. Friends, ice cream, blueberry cake, presents, music and dancing all in attendance. My, my... how does time fly so fast?

We struggled to get the party off the ground - holidays and traveling sort of had me a bit turned around. But once we took the tree down on New Year's Day it was full steam ahead to crepe paper, helium balloons and fancy hats.

The day was rainy, so we couldn't play outside, but having so many friends inside was a sort of chaotic bliss. So many smiling faces...

Happy, happy birthday my big boy! You amaze me every day.

Three from rd on Vimeo.

PS If you are ever thinking about making a wonderful blueberry cake. Don't look around, just use this recipe. Trust me. The recipe says it makes 12 servings, but we got about twice as many servings (making the calories about 200 per slice). Not bad, huh?

Blueberry Boy Bait from SmittenKitchen

Adapted from Cook’s Country, which adapted it from the original

Like any recipe with a great name, this also has a great story, which was that in 1954, a 15-year-old girl stole the show (but only won second prize) in the junior division of an early Pillbury Bake-Off with a variation of this recipe, named, she said, after the effect it had on boys.

Cook’s Country magazine dusted this recipe off from the Pillsbury Bake-Off Dessert Cookbook and made a few tweaks to bring it more deliciously into the modern age: butter was swapped for shortening, the quantity of blueberries was doubled and some plain sugar was replaced with brown sugar. The result? Let’s just say you don’t need to be a boy to be lured in.

Serves 12, generously but we got about 24-30 slices

2 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon table salt

16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup whole milk (though buttermilk, which was all I had on hand, worked just great)
I used buttermilk.

1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not defrost first as it tends to muddle in the batter)
I used twice as many and it was just fine.

Topping

1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)
I used twice as many and it was just fine.

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

Whisk two cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down bowl. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining one teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.

For the topping:

Scatter blueberries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)