Blueberry Cupcakes

Apologies for this being late... I saved it as a draft and am just getting back to it....

I can't wait to tell you about these fabulous blueberry cupcakes I took to my friend's house.  His birthday was on January 22 and I was going to his house for dinner.  Knowing he wasn't a baker (to be honest his cooking skills surprised me as well), I asked him what his favorite cake was.  He said he'd been craving blueberry cake with warm cream poured on it.  Well, with that as inspiration I set out to find something that would invoke the essence of that.

First, let me just say that there are not a lot of straight up blueberry cake recipes.  Blueberry muffins, sure.  Blueberry cake... not so much.  I didn't want something as dense as a muffin, I wanted light fluffy cake.  And, although I get that blueberry and lemon pair beautifully, I was very conscientious about making sure the blueberry was the star.  Again, going for berries and cream comfort, not summery blueberry lemonade :)

I ended up deciding on a catering cake recipe I found here. 

As soon as he said blueberries and cream, I knew exactly what frosting recipe I wanted to try.  My friend at work had been telling me about this whipped frosting that started as a roux of milk and flour... that's right folks... I said FLOUR.  That recipe is here.

While on my quest for the perfect blueberry cake, I did come across this blueberry jam recipe to use as a filling.  I couldn't resist :)


Now, I am a gild the lily kind of a person... so I also made some sugared blueberries and candied meyer lemon peel for the garnish.  If you've never done this (I hadn't), just google it - it's super easy.

Sugaring the blueberries involved dipping in a beaten egg white and then rolling around in granulated sugar.  See - not that tough...

The candied peel took a little more effort but was totally worth it.  You basically boil them in a cup of water until soft and then you pull them out and add a cup of sugar.  You bring that to a boil and then add the peel, simmer until translucent.  Strain the peel, reserving the syrup for yummy things like iced tea, and let sit and dry out for a few hours (I twisted mine).  The last step is to roll in some granulated sugar which keeps them from sticking to each other or anything else.  Careful, if you have a lemon fetish like me you might not have any left for garnish!  I could NOT stop eating them!  Pics eventually but for now at least I got the hard bit down and out :)