Blueberry Cake

Last week, when I was trying to find cake recipe on the internet, I stumble on a nice picture of a blue cake. That cake was soooo blue and looks awesome. After I read it further, it says that it's a blue velvet cake. I found that the cake was using some blue berry for its ingredients and quite a lot of blue dye. I really want to make it because it looks so blue and pretty. But I don't really want to use that much of blue dye. Well, I've made red velvet cake using raspberry concentrate. And it happened that I have a box of blueberry in my fridge. Maybe I could make a blue velvet cake with blueberry concentrate or something similar. Or maybe I could even throw in some blueberry inside the cake to increase the blueberry taste.

First, I made the blueberry jam. I had to admit that I let too much liquid evaporated but it doesn't matter. Meanwhile waiting for the jam become cool, I started to make the cake batter. After the batter was done, I pour all the jam into the batter and mix it manually. The result was not like I was expected because the batter turned out purple and not blue!! I added few drop of blue dye and hoping that the color would turn like the one on the internet. But after drops of blue dye, I couldn't get royal blue color like the picture. To be honest, I started to regret my decision to add some blue dye. Why didn't I add purple dye instead to make a purple cake instead of blue cake. Well, what's done is done. Can't be undone. I pour my blueish batter into the pan, and put it into the oven. 15 minutes inside the oven, I just realize that I made another mistake!! I totally forgot to add some fresh blueberry into the batter. Oh well...

After the cake was done and completely cool, I cover it with butter cream cheese frosting and decorate it with some fresh blueberry. (Forgive me for a bad and plain decoration. I was not in a mood to decorate a cake) Like as usual, I made a small round blueberry cake and few of mini cupcake. The cake taste good and even better with butter cream cheese frosting on it.

Ingredients :

• 192 grams (3/4 cup) AP flour
• 1/2 tsp cacao powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 30 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
• 92 grams white granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 120 ml (about 1/4 cup) milk
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Royal blue coloring agent
• For blueberry jam : 150 grams fresh blueberry + 30 grams white granulated sugar + 50 ml water

Preparation :
First, lets make the blueberry jam

1. In a pot, boil together blueberry, sugar and water until the blueberry start to break down.
2. Stir until almost all of the liquid are evaporated.
3. Transfer it into a bowl and let it cool completely.
   

Now, lets make the cake. 

1. Preheat oven for 180 C (350 F)
2. Prepare a cake pan, grease with butter, and line it with baking paper. Set aside. (Tip :  you can always use a muffin tin instead)
3. In a bowl, mix together flour, cacao powder, baking powder, and salt.
4. In another big bowl, with a electric or hand mixer, beat the butter until creamy.
5. Add granulated sugar into the creamy butter and beat again on high speed until light and fluffy.
6. Add egg and vanilla extract into the butter mixture and beat again.
7. Add about 1/3 of flour mixture alternately with about 1/3 of milk. Mix well before adding another 1/3 of flour mixture and milk.
8. Add blueberry jam into the batter and fold it manually with a spatula. 
9. At this point, once the blueberry jam is well mixed with the batter, you should get a purple batter.
10. Add few drop of blue coloring into the batter (if you want to make a blueish cake) and mix well.
11. Pour the batter into prepared cake pan or muffin tin.
12. Put it into preheated oven and bake for about 30-35 minutes or until skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
13. Take it out from the oven and let it cool completely before cutting or adding buttercream on it.

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