Red, White and Blueberry Cake

What would the 4th of July be without some very decadent dessert to enjoy after the barbecue?


Step 1: The Pound Cake
The term pound cake didn't mean that the cake weighed a pound or that you gained a pound by eating it. It referred to the original recipe: 1 pound each of butter, sugar, flour and eggs.

Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups butter, left to soften at room temp (that's 3 sticks!)
• 8 oz cream cheese, left to soften at room temperature (that's 1 pack)
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (real, not artificial)
• 1/2 tsp almond extract (real, not artificial)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 8" round cake pans. You might consider flouring them as well - mine stuck a little.
Now place the butter, cream cheese and sugar in a large mixing bowl. You can chop the butter into smaller pieces. Mix on low until creamy and all of the lumps are out.

If your ingredients are not soft and at room temp, at this point you'll realize why they should be. It won't mix properly unless it's soft. If you did good and set your ingredients out a few hours ago, it'll start to look like this picture.

One at a time, add the eggs to the butter mix. On low, stir well between each egg. Okay, so I did 2 eggs for this pic. But I did stir really well between them. And I did one egg at a time after that.

In a separate bowl, mix your dry ingredients together (both flours, salt and baking powder). I like to use a little tubby that has about twice the capacity as the dry ingredients. I put them all in, pop the lid on, shake it up and it's nice and mixed. I hate sifting - very tedious work.

After all of your eggs are mixed, gradually add the flour mix about 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well between each addition. Once it's all mixed, add your extracts. Your batter will be pretty thick by now.

Pour half the batter into each 8" round cake pan. Smooth it out even with a rubber spatula. Place them in the oven on the center rack. Cook for 40 to 60 minutes until a tester when inserted comes out clean.

That means poke it with a wooden toothpick or bar-b-que skewer. If the toothpick or skewer comes out with batter stuck to it, it's not done. Stick it back in and try again in 10 minutes. It's okay if a little cooked cake comes out on the stick, but I hope you can tell the difference between cooked cake and cake batter.

See how golden it looks - but not burnt. That's important. Don't burn it!

Now, it is July, and it's hot. So I baked the cakes last night, let them cool, and then popped some saran wrap on them to finish this morning. You can store it in the fridge, but I didn't have enough room. Leaving it on the counter is fine too, as long as it's wrapped well.

Step 2: The Whipped Cream
It is NOT cool to use Cool Whip! Making fresh whipped cream takes minutes, and the flavor is divine. Don't cheat!

Whipped Cream Recipe
Ingredients

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 2 TBSP powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

I recycle as much as I can. So use a couple of those take-out containers you get when you order Egg Drop Soup. A large sour cream or ricotta cheese container also works. Pour all of the ingredients into one.

This container is the perfect size to fit your ingredients and your hand-held beater. Turn the beater on low to mix the ingredients fully. Now pour half of the mixture into your second container (once the mixture gets fluffy, there's not enough room in one).

Whip it with the hand mixer on high. It will start getting thick in about a minute (like in the picture on the right), but it is not yet done.

Keep beating it. It will get thicker and start having the ability to form soft peaks, like in the picture on the left. But it's still not done.

Keep whipping it. Eventually, and probably not as long as you would expect, it will have the ability to form stiff peaks - that means when you pull the beaters out of the cream, the cream can form a peak (like a mountain peak) and the tip is nice and pointy. I have a heck of a time getting a picture of one (see right), but you should get the idea.

Now it's done.

Step 3: Assembly

The cake should be completely cool before you start assembling. Otherwise the whipped cream will melt. With a large bread knife or a cake leveler, level the cake. That means cut the bumpy part off and set it aside on the "cake scraps" plate for those people who come in the kitchen asking for a piece and if you're done yet.

Flip the cake over so that what was the bottom side in the pan is now the top side. Now you can see what I meant about needing to flour the cake pans. It didn't stick horribly, but if I wasn't as good at getting cakes out of the pans as I am, it would have been a cake wreck.

Spread a layer of whipped cream on the top (about 1/3 of the total whipped cream mixture).

Now we are going to add fruit in so that the weight of the top layer doesn't squeeze out the whipped cream from the middle. Place strawberry chunks and blueberries so that when pressed into the whipped cream, they don't stick up too much. These will act as pillars to keep the top layer from pressing too much on the bottom layer.

Now level the other cake round and place it on top of the first so that the side that was on the bottom in the pan is now on top.  Spread another 1/3 of the whipped cream on top. This will leave 1/3 of the whipped cream leftover.

Make sure that leftover 1/3 is pretty stiff (remember stiff peaks). If it's gone soft, beat it again with your hand mixer until it's nice and stiff.  Now place your largest star tip in an icing bag, nip the end off the bag, and scoop the remainder whipped cream (nice and stiff) into the bag. You are going to make a border and a dam for the fruit on the top of the cake. Just squeeze a little, and then pull up. Move over a bit, squeeze a little, and then pull up. It makes a simple star flower that adds a nice touch to the cake.

At this point, while you are busy with the fruit, keep the cake refrigerated so that the whipped cream doesn't go soft.

Step 4: Simple Syrup over the Fruit

You can skip this step and just add blueberries and chunks of strawberries to your cake top, or you can make a simple syrup for the fruit first.

A simple syrup is a one to one (1:1) ratio of sugar and water.  I used 1/4 cup of each. Add them to a small pot, bring it to a simmer and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, rinse your blueberries and strawberries (about 2/3 to 1 cup of each). Slice up the strawberries and pour both into a ceramic bowl. Once the syrup is done, pour it over the fruit. Stir it until the syrup coats all of the fruit. Pop it in the fridge until it is very cool, otherwise it will melt the whipped cream.

Once cool, use a slotted spoon to strain the fruit out of the bowl, letting the excess syrup drain back into the bowl. Arrange the fruit on top of the cake. Discard the extra syrup.

It was so yummy!! The cake is fairly heavy, which I love, but you can also cut it with some vanilla ice cream.