The Flavor Thesaurus

As a celebrator of Chrismakuh, Christmas is often a time to realize what you wanted for Hannukah and forgot to ask for. Just kidding, sort of. But in this case, for Christmas I got a book I have been dying for after reading about it countless times on PurpleFoodie: The Flavor Thesaurus, by Niki Segnit. I was browsing through it the day after Christmas, skimming all of the mouth-watering flavor pairings, and one that I stumbled upon happened to be Blueberry and Vanilla. There was a delicious-sounding recipe for a blueberry vanilla cake, but I wanted to see what more I could do with all of the frozen blueberries we have sitting in our freezer from this summer. I did a little google-ing, and came across a recipe for blueberry vanilla cupcakes with blueberry ganache. I did a little adapting to make it into a cake for our belated family Christmas dinner and gift exchange.

Ingredients
Recipe adapted from Bake It After All's Blueberry Vanilla Cupcake recipe
Cupcakes
1 C flour
2 t baking powder
1 t salt
6 T unsalted butter
1 C sugar
1 t vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 C milk
1 C blueberry puree*

*Puree, as directed by Bake It After All: Fresh or frozen blueberries, pureed in a food processor or blender and strained through a fine-mesh sieve. Approximately 1 cup of frozen blueberries was enough for me to get 1/2 cup puree. To facilitate straining the puree, whisk the blueberry mixture as you strain it through the sieve.

Helpful hint: If you are using frozen blueberries, run them under a little warm water first to thaw them. They'll puree much faster that way.

Blueberry ganache
12 oz semisweet chocolate (you can use chocolate chips if you'd like!)
2 C frozen blueberries
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C heavy cream
4 T butter

Directions
For the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350˚F. Mix dry ingredients together and set aside. Whisk the milk and blueberry puree together and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time to mixing bowl, and then add the vanilla. Alternate adding dry ingredient mixture and blueberry/milk mixture to the mixing bowl--half at a time worked for me. Mix until just combined, and pour on to cookie sheet lined with baking parchment. Spread evenly; the cake will be divided into two layers later. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

For the ganache: Place chocolate/chocolate chips in mixing bowl and set aside. Heat blueberries and sugar over medium heat in a small saucepan until mixture becomes sauce-like and bubbly. Pour into sieve and strain over the chocolate. In a saucepan, bring cream and butter to just below boiling over medium heat, and pour into chocolate mixture. Let sit for 30 seconds, and then stir mixture until smooth. Once cooled, you can chill the ganache as well if you would like to pipe it, but since I was making a cake instead of cupcakes, as the recipe called for, I used it when it was still more liquid than frosting consistency.

Once the cake is out of the oven, slice it into two equal-sized rectangles. Put a layer of ganache on top of the bottom layer, and then stack the second. Frost the rest of the cake and top with blueberries and dusted powdered sugar.


Unfortunately the blueberries were a little less present in taste than I was hoping for, but I used the extra blueberries I had left over from straining to put in between cake layers with the ganache, which added just a little more flavor. I'd even put in a few more next time. One of the best things about this cake is the lovely lavender color it adopts once you've added the blueberry puree. I dusted the top with powdered sugar and lined it with blueberries. The presentation could have been a little better--but at least everyone devoured it!