I haven't had the time to blog for a bit due to some academic commitments and deadlines and I've been really missing making all those sumptuous food. Well, the semester has finally ended and I can now get back to all that cooking and baking I've been keeping for summer. To celebrate the end of semester, my friends decided to have a coffee and cake party today at their place. Even though they are from Austria and you really don't want to compete against the Austrians in baking, I thought I'll put my baker's hat and bake up some blueberry cupcakes! And the result was this:
Ingredients Makes 24
For the batter
All purpose flour- 3 cups Butter- 2 sticks (unsalted) Salt- 1/2 tsp Low fat Buttermilk- 3/4 cup Baking powder- 1 tbsp Fresh blueberry- 1/2 cup pureed Freeze dried blueberry- 1.2 oz (34 grams), blended into a paste in a food processor Eggs- 2 Sugar- 2 cups Lemon zest- 1 tbsp Vanilla extract- 1 tsp
For the frosting
Butter- 1 cup Cream cheese- 8 oz Freeze dried blueberry- 1.2 oz (34 grams), blended into a paste in a food processor Sugar- 2 cups
Method
1. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together and keep aside.
2. Pulverize the freeze dried blueberries.
You can pulverize the fresh blueberries as well and keep them both aside.
3. Mix together the buttermilk, vanilla extract, and the fresh blueberry puree.
4. In a big bowl, add the softened butter, sugar and lemon zest. I used lemons plucked fresh from a lemon tree and that made a lot of difference. Beat using an electric mixture. Add in eggs, one by one and beat thoroughly. Follow with the pulverized freeze dried blueberries.
5. Now mix in the flour and the buttermilk mixtures in batches of three, by alternating between the two. Mix thoroughly and scrape down the bowl to see that all parts get mixed well.
6. Now comes the fun part! Pick up those colorful cupcake liners and place them in the cupcake racks. Scoop the batter and put in the cupcake liners. Preheat the oven till 350 F. Put them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Check using toothpick to see if the insides are done. Take them out and let them cool.
7. While we wait for the cupcakes to bake, let's make the frosting. I'm not so fond of thick frosting, so I made mine a little watery. If you want a slightly thicker icing, just add 2-3 cups more sugar. In a bowl, add the softened butter, cream cheese, and the pulverized freeze dried blueberries. Beat a little and then add in the 2 cups of sugar. Beat till creamy.
8. By the time this gets done, the cupcakes should be ready. So let's go get them out of the oven!
Don't they look delicious? Now, let's frost them and decorate them and then munch on them :)
