Shabby Chic Lemon Blueberry Cake (with recipe)

So it's fall, which means I'm busy. Every year, we run into this. Too many party's to plan or go to. Too many costumes to finish. Too many Texas Renaissance Festival weekends to attend... And too many holidays. Ok, so really its not too much of anything. I LOVE the fall. The only time I have an issue is when I get this phone call.

"I know two professional bakers, and I need a cake for the other one."

The week before Renfest camping and I had two costumes on my plate to finish. One of them just didn't get done. That's a whole other story. (See my other blog)

 

But the phone call came from a friend of mine. And the whole point of the camping trip was his wife's birthday party. You guessed it, she's the other professional baker. So how could I say no?

So as any professionally trained baker would do, when I heard she wanted Blueberry Lemon Cake with Blueberry Frosting, I went to the internets.

Out of habit I would have used round pans. But mine were loaned out. Remember  I was making costumes this week. No need for pans.

But the cake baked up shorter than I expected. Change of plans again.

Cut, stack and trim. Thought process: This is a tall cake. I have to transport this an hour and a half away. Finished cake so pretty in my head. What if it falls over!!!! ...think...think...think... Got it!

How to transfer a tall cake. Cut foam board to fit in cake carrier. Cover with pretty cake foil. Stick cake on top of covered board. Run sticks through cake and into foam. Perfect. (Ok not perfect. The cake was too tall for that carrier, I had to but it in a larger carrier, where it had space to slide around in and baby sit it all the way to the campsite. But, it did not fall over!)

I've been wanting to try ruffles and rosettes for a while now. So glad I did!

Lemon-Blueberry Layer Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon pure lemon extract
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened about 20 minutes out of refrigerator
1 1/2 cups white sugar
4 large eggs

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare three 8" round cake pans with parchment paper, butter and flour. Sift dry ingredients into medium bowl. Transfer 1 tablespoon flour mixture to larger bowl. Add fresh blueberries and toss to coat them with flour. Set remaining flour mixture and blueberries aside.

Stir whole milk, sour cream, vanilla extract, lemon extract and lemon zest in small bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar, until pale yellow and very fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, until well combined. Mix in flour mixture alternately with milk mixture, starting and ending with flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Divide batter equally among 8" round pans.
Bake cakes until toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks for about 10 minutes, then invert onto racks until completely cool.

Adopted from: www.sweetapolita.com/blog

Frosting:

I didnt really use a recipe for the frosting. I made three different batches, not really on purpose.I blended blueberries in the food processor and strained them out for frosting on the outside of the cake. And then mixed the pulp into the buttercream (about two parts powdered sugar to one part butter). The frosting on the inside had all of the blueberry bits in it to add more flavor. The off white frosting on the outside of the cake was very buttery (not intentional) Italian Buttercream with what little blueberry puree I had left. Blueberries are expensive in the fall, and I didnt intend on using the full recipe of cake, so....