Moist Blueberry Cake

(1 small, 6-cup bundt cake)

Fresh blueberries are showing up at reasonable prices. I thought I'd try making a cake instead of muffins this year. I started off by weighing flour, sugar, butter and eggs to get an idea of the measurements for a classic pound cake. From there I made a few adjustments hoping for a moist cake.

I added the cornstarch because my grandmother used to add some to her pound cake and wondered if that was the same idea as adding pudding. I used baking soda and baking powder because whenever I've made this type of cake before without, it's been a bit denser than I like. I increased the amount of sugar from 3/4 to 1 cup.. something I hate to do, but when I looked at a few other pound cake recipes, they were using up to 2 cups of sugar for the same amount of flour. I imagine the sugar is part of what makes some of these cakes moist. I also replaced some of the egg with sour cream.

The cake turned out really well. I'm thinking of making it again with orange peel and poppy seeds instead of the blueberries and lemon.

Update: I stored this cake on a plate loosely covered with plastic wrap at room temperature. By the 2nd day it seemed even moister to me than the day I made it (moist, not soggy or anything like that). In part I suspect it's the blueberries. Thought I would mention this here.





Cake
1 cup unbleached flour
2/3 cup cake flour
2 tbsp corn starch
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon zest, minced
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks) at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
1/4 tsp natural lemon flavour (optional)
2/3 cup sour cream
1 cup fresh blueberries

Lemon Glaze
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest, minced

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Cake
Prepare a small 6 cup cake pan with butter and flour. I used a small bundt pan. Set aside.

Combine the flours, corn starch, baking soda, baking powder and zest. Set aside.

Beat the butter until it begins to get fluffy. Slowly add the sugar and beat it for about 8 minutes until it's light and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time until each is mixed in scraping down the sides between each one. Add the lemon flavour at this point if you are using.

This is after the butter and sugar have been beaten about 8 minutes.

This is after the 3rd egg and lemon flavour were added.

Slowly stir in half of the flour mixture, then add the sour cream. Scrape down the sides and add the remaining flour mixture and mix slowly for about 30 seconds.

Spoon half of the batter into your prepared  pan. Sprinkle the blueberries evenly over the surface, the spoon the remaining batter over those. I didn't use all of the blueberries in the middle and ended up poking some of them into the batter on top.

Bake for about 55-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I bake everything in a counter top convection oven. Usually when I bake a cake I use the bottom rack. I didn't do that this time.. I hesitated as I put the cake in, but then forgot about it. About 35 minutes in I could smell something burning. When I checked,  the top of the cake had risen about 2 inches past the pan and was touching the element. I removed the cake from the oven and with a knife removed what would have been a lovely brown crust from the top of the cake.. and returned it to the oven.

Remove from the oven and cool the cake in the pan for about 15 minutes. Carefully invert the cake and allow it to cool completely.

Glaze
Combine the powdered sugar with the lemon juice. Adjust the amount of juice until you have a slightly runny glaze. Stir in the lemon zest. Drizzle over the cooled cake.