Lemon-Blueberry Pound Cake, Blueberry Gelato, and the Force

I was watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother awhile ago (one of my absolute favorite shows), and Ted and Marshall had this brilliant tradition. Every three years they would watch the Star Wars Trilogy all in a row (the classics, not that crappy new stuff). I just thought, that sounds like an amazing idea, especially since they're my favorite movies, yet I have never done that before (plus, Marshall said that if you didn't, the dark side would win....and that. cannot. happen). So me and my friends, Nichole, Katie, and Tyler decided that it needed to happen, it had to happen. 

And can I tell you what? It was amazing. I just sat there the whole time thinking that these movies are waaaaaaay better than just about any of the computer-generated crap they call action sci-fi movies nowadays (I do not include Iron Man, The Avengers, Star Trek(yes, all of them), and X-Men First Class in this because those movies are kick-ass). I love the story, the actors, the graphics, the settings, and we decided that a bartender R2D2 must be in our lives (but not the stuff they thought it would be okay to add in and be totally obvious about...no, I do not need to see the whole empire dancing once the emperor is killed, thank you. I was perfectly fine without it before and I still am). Okay. I'll stop waxing poetically about the amazingness of Star Wars because I'm pretty sure that isn't why you read my blog. 

So of course, since this was going to be an all day event, we were going to need some sustenance. I decided to make a Lemon-Blueberry pound cake (that is also serving as my breakfast this week) and some Blueberry Gelato to go with it! I love those flavors, and I've been itching to make some homemade gelato because it's been awhile since I last had. (Please prepare yourself for a long, picture-heavy blog post. I apologize. Well, no I don't. Because I love blogging, so I like the occasional long post. So read on!)

First up, the gelato! The thing about the recipes I use is that they can take a couple days to really make, so it's definitely not one of those instant gratification desserts, but the wait is always worth it. 

You'll start by putting 3 cups of fresh blueberries in a pot and sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice over them. You'll mix it up so they're well coated and the sugar has dissolved, and then let it sit for 30 minutes (In the below picture, I have it on the stove, but you won't turn the heat on just yet!)

While the blueberries were marinating, I started the base. You'll pour 2 cups whole milk and 1 cup heavy cream into a saucepan. You'll then put it on medium-low heat

You'll let that sit over the heat until tiny bubbles start to form (can you see those bubbles? It was hard to get a good picture of them). 

Once those bubbles have formed, in a heat proof bowl, you'll combine four egg yolks and 2/3 cup sugar, and whisk hardcore until it's light yellow.

You'll then temper in the cream and milk mixture to the egg and sugar mixture. This means you'll pour in a bit at a time so as not to "scramble" the eggs. Once you have it all combined and whisked well together, you'll pour it back into the pan, over low heat, and let it thicken up and coats the back of the spoon. Then you'll pour the finished custard into a bowl (through a fine mesh strainer), let it cool to room temperature (stirring every few minutes), cover it, and place it in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours. I usually do this part at night and let it chill over night.

While working on the base, and the blueberries have sat for 30 minutes, you'll turn the eye on to low heat and let the blueberries become a syrup. They'll break down and will deflate some, but won't completely turn to syrup (which is fine because then you'll have fresh blueberry bits to prove that it's real!). And once that is done, and cooled to room temperature, you'll also put that in the fridge.

The next day (or four hours later if you're doing all of this in one day), you'll blend the blueberries with about half of the base.

Once that's well blended, pour it into the rest of the base and whisk your little heart out! I also decided that I wanted to add just about 1/2 tsp of vanilla to give it a little more of a blueberries 'n cream taste. GENIUS move, Carolyn. GENIUS.

I then put the mixture into my ice cream maker, and let it church for about 30 minutes!

When the gelato was done churning, I poured it into my container and then froze it for a couple of hours so it would finish setting. Of course, before washing the dishes, I kept licking the freezer bowl. And licking it, and licking it because oh. em. gee. That stuff is delicious. It was a super refreshing and light flavor, and so creamy. Yum, yum, yum. I took the leftovers to the office today too and it was just about gone when I left at the end of the day.

Okay. Now for the pound cake!!

Remember that last bundt cake I made? Where I used five sticks of butter? Well, I used a little healthier of a recipe this time around, where I used only 1 stick of butter, and fat free cream cheese and fat free lemon yogurt for the rest of the moisture in the cake!

I started by going ahead and squeezing the 1/4 cup of lemon juice I was going to need. 

I also coated the 2 cups of frozen blueberries with 2 tablespoons of flour (that is taken from the 3 cups of flour I put in a separate bowl). Doing this is what prevents all the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the pan while baking.

Along with the flour, you add in 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp of both baking soda and salt.

In your mixer, you'll combine the room temperature 1/2 cup butter (one stick), 1/2 cup room temperature cream cheese (and to be perfectly honest, I totally accidentally used a whole cup of cream cheese, but it turned out awesome, so I guess its a good thing I used fat free), and 1 and 3/4 cup sugar. You'll mix for about 4 minutes on medium speed.

You'll then add three eggs, one at a time, and mix well after each addition.

Then mix in 2 tbsp lemon zest, 2 tsp vanilla, and the 1/4 lemon juice you squeezed earlier.

At this point, you'll alternate adding in the flour mixture with 8 oz of lemon yogurt. You'll want to begin and end with the flour mixture.

Then you veeeeerry carefully fold in the blueberries, and then pour the batter into the greased 10-cup bundt pan. And bake for about an hour and 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

After letting it cool for 20 minutes or so, you'll take it out of the pan and let it finish cooling on the rack.

The glaze on this bundt cake turned out a lot better. I just mixed 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar, and started with 4 tsp lemon juice, but kept adding more lemon juice until it got to a good pouring consistency. Then I just drizzled it over the cake!

Look at how pretty!!! And it was soooooooooooooo tasty. Light, refreshing, the right amount of density. The lemon wasn't overly powerful and you got little juicy bits when you bit into a blueberry. Definitely one of my best to date for sure.

If you stuck out the post this long, give yourself a nice pat on the back!

Spring (and Summer?) Wreath

I took my winter wreath down about a month or so ago because the form was starting to sag way too much, plus, considering how warm it's been here lately, it just seemed wrong having it up even though I hadn't made one for the spring yet. So my wreath hanger just kind of stayed lonely on my door for awhile...until today!

I pinned this wreath on Pinterest awhile ago because I just loved the vintagey vibe to it, and every time I looked at it on my board, it just made me happy. I finally got around to buying my supplies, and with a three day weekend, I knew I had the couple hours to devote to making it. Since it's already well into spring, this may end up being my wreath for both spring and summer. We'll see if I decide to be super productive in a few months because my other wreath idea will be very time consuming.

I got it in my head awhile ago, that I definitely wanted to keep with the stripe fabric like my inspiration wreath, but there was just something in my head screaming "Seersucker!!" I was a bit worried that I would have this idea and not be able to find the fabric I really wanted. I saw it online at Jo-Ann's, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find it in the actual store. Luckily, I walked in, and found my way straight to it! I picked up a yard of the lime green seersucker, which ended up being more than plenty of fabric (it's about 42" wide, so a yard was plenty). I then went over to the felt fabric sheets and choose some colors for my flowers. It was a little difficult because I didn't want something too bright or too dark, or too not coordinating. I decided to get a dark brown for the leaves, a tan for one of the flowers, and then use some of my leftover white felt for two of the other flowers. Unfortunately, they didn't have the right size straw wreath form, so I found my 18" wreath at Michaels. Overall, the project probably cost me about $10 and took about 2 hours (but part of that might have been my constant distraction of watching Friday Night Lights).

You can do whatever size wreath you want, I just like mine to be a bit bigger for my door, and 18" turned out to be the perfect size.

For the felt sheets, you'll need 1 for the color of your leaves, two for one flower, and four for the other two flowers (or 2 per flower if you do three different colors). You'll also need pins for securing everything to the wreath.

You'll want to cut your fabric into three inch wide strips. I wouldn't cut all of the fabric at first, just cut about 6 or 7 strips and then after putting some on your wreath, cut more as needed. This way, you'll have uncut extra fabric for some other project you may want to use it for. 

Using the pins, pin the end of the fabric on the back of the wreath, at a slight angle, and then start wrapping around the wreath! Just remember to pin each end as you go, overlap it, and pull the fabric tight so it fits snugly to the form. 

Once that's completed, it's time for the felt flowers! You can either freehand everything if you're a master with scissors, or use templates. For my leaves, I decided to do freehand since they're pretty straight forward. I was able to get all six leaves from one felt sheet. If you want more leaves, you'll probably need an extra sheet.

I decided to make myself a template for the flowers because otherwise my perfectionist self would have had to run out for a lot more felt. (This was about my third attempt to get a template I liked, so it's a good thing I decided to do that!) You'll want two big petals, two medium, and two small per flower.

Then you'll fold each petal in half, and then in half again, and pin to the wreath! 

I pinned the two big petals next to each other, and then the medium ones on the other side, and the small ones in the middle. For the two white flowers, since they were on the edge, I made sure the big petals were on the outside edges of the flower cluster. And then I fluffed them so they looked nice and pretty! You can do the flowers with more or less petals or other sizes, it's really all your preference, this is just how I chose to do mine. Then I pinned two leaves under each flower and the wreath was completed!

It definitely brightens up my door!

Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes

Ah spring time. If it wasn't for the thin layer of pollen on everything, I'd really be able to enjoy it. I'm loving the fact that it's finally warm out (not that this past winter was that cold anyways) and it stays light later...which is even more awesome now that I finally have some porch furniture and can sit outside and enjoy it.

Of course, with spring comes a whole new set of baking flavors. For me, fall is all about warm spices, winter is spices and peppermint, and spring and summer are about light fresh flavors...like lemon and blueberry! It's a fantastic combination of fruit, and perfect to put in...cupcakes! One of my best friends just moved back to town and had a housewarming party, so I decided to bake some lemon blueberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting for her since that recipe has been sitting on my Pinterest board for months just begging to be made.

This recipe made about 16 cupcakes, but it can be give or take a few depending on how much you fill up each cupcake wrapper. You'll want to have the oven at 350, and the pan lined with the liners so the process will be smoother.

Start with 3/4 cup regular all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup cake flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt mixed together in a bowl and set aside.

Then you'll combine 8 tbsp room-temperature butter, 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar, and the zest of a whole lemon to be mixed together on medium speed for about 2 minutes...just until it's light and fluffy!

 Then add in two eggs (one at a time, and beat about 20 seconds after each addition), plus 1 tsp vanilla extract and 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice.

Once all those ingredients are mixed well together, you'll add in half of the dry ingredients and mix well for a couple minutes, then add 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp milk, mix well, and then add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until the batter is perfect.

Once the batter is done, in a separate bowl, toss about a cup of fresh blueberries with 2 tbsp flour (this helps them not sink in the cupcake batter as they bake), and then lightly fold the berries into the batter with a spatula.

 Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 with batter and bake for about 22 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean!

Now for the frosting!!!! I do love a good cream cheese frosting, and with a lemon kick to it? So awesome.

You'll start by beating 8 oz of cream cheese and 5 tbsp room temperature butter for a few minutes until well nice and smooth.

 After you add in the zest from one lemon and a tbsp of fresh lemon juice, mix in 3 cups of confectioner's sugar, one at a time, until you have a good consistency for your frosting. You'll want to beat the frosting for a couple minutes at medium speed to make sure there are no sugar clusters in the frosting.

After frosting the cupcakes, I topped them off with some fresh blueberries!

These were seriously delicious. They were light, fresh, and the lemon flavoring wasn't too powerful, just enough of a sour kick to them. I think my favorite part of these cupcakes had to be when you got a bite with a blueberry (not the ones on top, the ones in the batter) and you get a rush of juiciness in your mouth. It was a refreshing flavor combo that's for sure, and I have a few other lemon-blueberry recipes that will definitely be made in the next couple months!