Gram Goodine’s Blueberry Cake

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fresh blueberries, gram goodine, Kippy Rudy, kippy rudy blueberry cake, maine blueberry cake, wild maine blueberries

Dear GrowingUpJulia Readers,

I am pleased to announce that today I am posting our first guest post from the fabulous Ms. Kippy Rudy. I’ve been very busy with campaigning and to keep me fueled, Kippy has been kind enough to keep dropping off food for me. My favorite treat is her blueberry cake. Wild Maine Blueberries are one of my guilty pleasures. I can eat pint after pint. My mother used to run a commercial blueberry field and I grew up learning how to rake them and process them. Although, I always got in trouble for eating about half of what I harvested. So naturally I have an extreme fondness for anything blueberry. That’s why I asked Kippy if she would be willing to jot down her blueberry cake recipe. So without further ado I present “Gram Goodine’s Blueberry Cake.”

Kippy Rudy

Mattie has been busy campaigning and has sadly had little time to cook.  So without her around to interfere and try to improve upon the recipe with shaved chocolate or imported figs, I decided to make my great-grandmother’s blueberry cake and post it for you all to enjoy.

Now we should be clear on a few things. Blueberry cake is a traditional Maine summer dessert, made with the small, sweet wild berries that cover our mountains and fields every August (or earlier this summer). While you can find blueberries in other places – and even the grocery store – I have never seen blueberry cake anyplace else. And you certainly can’t make it with those giant cultivated blueberries that look as though they were doused in steroids but lack intense the flavor of our native berries. Some things are just best they way they have always been.

Secondly, I did not come from a family with generations of traditions and heirlooms and favorite recipes. This is it for the recipes that go back past my mother. I am told that others in the family had not asked Gram for the recipe, which I attribute to laziness and lack of curiosity. So when I finally asked, it took a little prodding, including the encouragement of her sister, my Aunt Ruth. She wrote it down and Ruth grabbed it. Having made the cake her entire life (and she was well into her 90s at the time), Ruth immediately noticed that Gram had altered the recipe.  I just don’t think she could bear anyone replicating her legendary blueberry cake. Ruth corrected the ratio of flour and it was given to me, with both sisters’ notes.

So in honor of Gram Goodine and all the proud women who wanted to be generous with their favorite recipes but just couldn’t bring themselves to do so, I give you traditional Maine blueberry cake.

Kippy’s daughter, Arden, making Blueberry Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

• 2 c fresh wild Maine blueberries
• 2 c flour (Gram said 3—I wouldn’t trust her though)
• 2 c sugar (I find it works well with 1 ½)
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 c milk
• 1/3 c vegetable oil
• ½ tsp vanilla

Dust the blueberries in flour and set aside. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl and the wet ingredients in a second bowl.  Combine mixtures, and when thoroughly blended, add the blueberries. Pour into a greased 9 inch square baking dish and bake for 45 minutes. Cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  When cool, sprinkle top with sugar.  

Every summer I make dozens of the cakes (two to four at a time) and freeze them for the winter. They store and defrost beautifully and I can easily mail them frozen to my daughter away at school. Just hold off on the sugar sprinkled on top until you are ready to serve.

Gram Goodine’s Blueberry Cake

NPR: Pie-Making 101: How I Overcame My Fear Of Crumbling Crust

Tags

npr, npr piemaking 101

This morning I heard a lovely piece on NPR’s Morning Edition about pies. In the piece they talked about how making a pie crust from scratch has become a lost art and invokes panic in many home chefs. After hearing this I’ve decided to make a video tutorial on my vodka pie crust. I’ve been asked several times for my recipe from friends who said the thought of making a crust from scratch scared them. I guess they weren’t alone! Look for the video in a couple of weeks. In the meantime start trying the recipe discussed in the NPR piece. Remember 3-2-1 and that you are the boss of the pie!

Give the piece a listen and tell me what you think!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/07/02/155984642/pie-making-101-how-i-overcame-my-fear-of-crumbling-crust

Happy Baking!

Whoops… and peaches!

Tags

cobbler, hurricane irene, peach cobbler, peaches

Movin' to the country/Gonna eat a lot of Peaches - Presidents of the United State of America

Well that plan went real well…

Blog in the middle of a hurricane! What a brilliant idea! That is until you loose power and internet and all connection to the outside world. Instead of blogging we had a Hurricane Party that essentially consisted of five adults processing peaches for 48 hours with a five year old running around giggling.

We got our power back within 24 hours (normally it takes several days) and, yes, I should have blogged then but life got in the way again. Irene just barely grazed us. The next morning was a gorgeous sunny day and my family quickly threw our stuff in the car and rushed up to Acadia. We had a wonderous vacation. Then I went back to work… Then I had admissions work to do for Smith… And then there was a bunch of shiny stuff, and oh dear, I forgot to blog! Naughty, naughty, me!

I cooked some amazing food during that Hurricane. Even though this material was meant to be posted a month ago I feel it is better late than never.

So today I wanted to share with you my favorite peach recipe from Irene. (We also made a kick-ass Ginger Peach Jam.) This Peach Cobbler recipe is one that my mother tested out all week and we happily gobbled up all the different batches. This cobbler doesn’t have a typically biscuit type topping. Instead it has a wonderful gooey, thick and sugar crunch top.

Mama Daughtry’s Notcha Usual Peach Cobbler!

Mama Daughtry's Notcha Usual Peach Cobbler!

• 4 cups peaches
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 T butter
• 1 cup flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 t baking power
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 t each almond and vanilla extract

1. Wash, peel, pit and slice peaches. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of sugar over peaches and set them aside at least half an hour to macerate in their juices.
2. Turn oven on to 350 degrees. Put butter in a 9 by 13 baking dish and place in oven for several minutes to melt.
3. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add milk and extracts and blend until smooth.
4. Remove hot pan from oven and immediately pour in the batter evenly over the butter without stirring. Then pour peaches and their juices somewhat evenly over batter again without stirring. Sprinkle with more cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg and bake for about 50 minutes until top is browned.

 

Look at all that delicious, gooey, peachy goodness!

And because I was so excited about our peach harvest this year (we processed over 60 pounds!) I wanted to share with you some more photos:

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me!

The downside of organic peaches... (This looks very Alien like)

Apparently I'm not the only fan of my peach tree!

 

 

Time to Jump on the Cupcake Wagon!

Tags

Carrot Cake, Carrot Cake Cupcakes, Cream Cheese Frosting, Cupcakes, Marzipan, verysmallanna

Carrot Cake Cupcake w/Cream Cheese Frosting and Marzipan decorations.

I am very late to the cupcake party.

My mother did not make them for me as a child. I would have them occasionally at a party or other festive event, but cupcakes and I rarely crossed paths. Now don’t get me wrong, I love cupcakes but they just were not a part of my family’s desert repertoire.

Then sometime in the past decade a cupcake renaissance occurred. Suddenly they were everywhere and had grown up from those Betty Crocker bake sale cupcakes of yore. There were blogs popping up left and right worshipping their common goddess, the Cupcake. Heck there was even a TV Show to boot! Now they came in all kinds of intriguing flavors and with high-quality ingredients. Many of them were miniature masterpieces of sculpture. The cupcake had gone artisan! During this cupcake boom I felt like the little kid not picked for the kickball team. I was on the outskirts of cupcake-land but still unsure how to proceed without the proper training. It was time to go to cupcake bootcamp!

Cupcake bootcamp came in the form of www.verysmallanna.com. Very Small Anna’s beautiful blog showed me what the humble cupcake could become. From her Popcorn-Champagne Cupcakes to her Smartass-Savory Cupcake I read in awe of her daring kitchen creations. Then came her Spring Lawn Cupcakes with their tempting filling of fresh mint custard and luscious looking chocolate ganache frosting. I was hooked; time to start making cupcakes.

So on a Thursday night I called up my little sister, Gaetan, and asked if she would care to come over for a cupcake party. She was thrilled and excitedly brought along her friend Julia to assist in the chaos. None of us are cupcake experts but share an extreme love of all things carrot cake. So armed with some rad cupcake supplies from Target, food coloring, an unhealthy amount of bunny marshmallows and a roll of marzipan we set out to create our very own spring cupcakes. Finally I was in on the cupcake party! (Recipes below)

Cupcakes fresh out of the oven

What's better than a cupcake? A cupcake filled with cream cheese frosting!

The hostess armed with an icing gun.

Bunny Cupcake

Bunny's Attacking a Carrot and The Bunny Massacre Cupcakes

 

Forbidden Fruit Cupcake

Balding Old Man Cupcake

Tier of Cupcakes

Carrot Cake Cupcakes (adapted from Martha Stewart)

Make 24 cupcakes

• ¾ – 1 pound carrots, peeled and grated
• 3 large eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 ½ cups canola oil
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• ¾ cup raisins (flame or golden)
• 1 cup toasted walnuts
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 ½ teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Line 2 muffin tins with cupcake liners.

2. In a large bowl whisk together carrots, eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk, vanilla seeds, raisins and walnuts. Mix until well combined. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, fresh ginger and cloves. Stir the flour into the carrot mixture until combined.

3. Fill each cupcake liner ¾ full. Bake the two tins for 25 – 28 minutes. Let cool on tins for 5 minutes and then transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

4. Frost cupcakes with lots and lots of cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe is a starting place. I find Cream Cheese Frosting to be an incredibly personal preference. Some like it syrupy sweet and others prefer to have it tangy. Use this recipe as a suggestion and make sure to taste it along the way!

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 2½  – 4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Beat butter and cream cheese in a mixer on medium speed until fluffy.

2. Reduce speed to low and slowly add sugar. Taste the frosting after adding about 2½ cups. Add the rest of the sugar depending on taste and preference. Finish by adding the vanilla.