Lemon Blueberry Poundcake with Lemon Glaze

When life gives you lemons, make lemon blueberry pound cake! I keep seeing lemon blueberry cakes around the blogosphere and I developed a serious craving! I found and modified this recipe but in the end it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Deliciously crumby and richly butter filled it satisfied my taste craving however, not my texture craving.  I wanted a moist rich heavy pound cake with a deep lemon flavor and studs of blueberries.  I am going to keep trying but know if you try this recipe, you wont be disappointed by the taste.

Lemon Blueberry Pound cake with Lemon Glaze
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour +1Tbsp.
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened at room temperature
11/2 cup sugar +1 Tbsp.
4 eggs
2 teaspoons almond extract
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 6 cup bundt pan with Pam with flour or a similar product. In a medium bowl, combine 11/2 cup flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment cream the butter. Add 11/2 cup of the sugar and mix. With the mixer running at low speed, add the eggs one at a time. Add the almond extract.
Working in alternating batches, and mixing after each addition, add the dry ingredients and 1/4 cup of the lemon juice to the butter mixture. Mix until just smooth.
In a small bowl combine blueberries and remaining sugar and flour and stir until berries are coated.  Gently fold into batter and pour mixture into prepared pan bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out dry and almost clean 50-60 minutes.
For a glaze I took 1/3 cup lemon juice and mixed it with confectioner's sugar till it was a thick glaze and poured it over the cooled cake.

Red Velvet Chicken Tenders

     First and foremost, HAPPY Valentine's Day to everyone out there in blogland! Second of all, could you ask for a more perfect Valentine? I'm not gonna lie, SA only got this picture because I was holding up a bit of cream cheese mashed potatoes over his head. Our golden Curry is the epitome of love and I just had to share.

     SA and I don't really go all out for Valentine's day, its not our thing.  Now don't get me wrong, we aren't one of those couples that bemoan all aspects of Valentine's, but nor are we ones that go buck wild for the holiday.  We have a system: one year I plan what we do for Valentine's and the next SA plans it all.  This year was SA's and I woke up to:

                                                                clings on the mirror!

                                                              Flowers and an Itunes gift card!

                                             and the best most quirky from my artistic husbands mind:

Yes friends, that is my sink.  Yes that is cinnamon toothpaste spelling out UR LOVED (with hearts). Yes, I adore my darling creative husband and I'm not gonna lie, through the cinnamon haze, I "might" of teared up a little.  He is the best.

     So that being said, how could I not make him something creative and amazing for dinner tonight.  Emphasis on creative. Thus I give to you:

Red Velvet Cake Fried Chicken Tenders

1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs
5 drops of red food coloring
1 teaspoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 pound of chicken tenders
Flour for dredging
Canola Oil

Combine all ingredients except chicken tenders, blending until smooth and non lumpy. Heat Frying oil and dredge tenders in flour then dip in red velvet cake batter. Fry six minutes and flip half way.
Serve with cream cheese mashed potatoes.
Now I admit I am a bit embarrassed by this recipe... I mean red velvet cake on a chicken tender? How unhealthy could we get? But I will say, we only had two a piece and no dessert even on Valentines day! (So friends while this recipe might be what is wrong with America, it is all about portion control!)

And SA, just so you know:

 

Anniversary Cake

The Sexy Artist and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on September 12th(it has been a crazy amazing wonderful year and I love him everyday just as much if not more than the day I married him!) and while I would like to report back that it was romantic including cheesy scenes of us feeding each other dried bits of cake lovingly preserved in layers of plastic wrap and foil from our wedding, this was not the case.  The week before our wedding anniversary I unexpectedly had to have my gallbladder removed.  Not only that, somehow I threw away the cake we had saved! I didn't do it on purpose, even though many of you will remember me griping that we should just eat the cake then rather than let it stale for a year.  I think I thought it was one of these weird cuts of pork the SA bought one time when he ventured to the store by himself. (which have subsequently lived in our freezer for the past two years) Needless to say I felt horrible.  Not only were our get-away plans ruined, I had thrown away our cake! There was only one thing left to do.  Recreate the wedding cake. 
Quickly I ruled out two of our flavors, gingerbread with caramelized apples (neither of us are huge fans except in small pieces) and chocolate turtle (while it was delicious its just too rich) So I decided to make a variation of the chai spice cake with white chocolate frosting.
It was a gorgeous cake, delicious frosting and a great way of celebrating our first anniversary.

Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Cream
slightly modified from From Sky High:Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne
1 and 1/3 cups of milk
6 chai tea bags
4 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 and 3/4 cups of cake flour
2 cups of sugar
4 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon of salt
8 ounces of unsalted butter at room temp.
Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees F. Grease the bottom and sides of the pans and line with parchment paper. Grease the paper as well.
In a small saucepan bring the milk to a simmer over low med-low heat. Add the tea bags, careful not to let the paper tag fall into the milk. Remove from heat and allow the tea to steep for 5 minutes. Remove the teabags and squeeze out the milk. Let the chai milk cool completely.
In a medium bowl mix the eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, and 1/3 cup of the chai milk. Whisk together.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt in the bowl of a mixer. Beat on low for 30 seconds. Add the butter and the remaining chai milk, on med-low speed.
Raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg mixture in three additions scraping the between additions. Divide the batter evenly among the pans.
Bake the cakes for 26-28 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes.Remove cakes from pans and peel off parchment paper. Cool completely.
Ginger Cream
2 and 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar
6 ounces of cream cheese at room temp.
6 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temp.
1/2 cup of honey (I used blackberry)
1 TBSP. finely minced crystallized ginger
Place all the ingredients in stand mixer and mix till blended.

Crystallized ginger
    Peel and thinly slice 1 pound  fresh ginger root. Place sliced ginger in a heavy saucepan, cover with water and cook gently until tender, about 30 minutes. Drain off water.
    Weigh the cooked ginger and measure an equal amount of sugar and return to saucepan.  Add sugar and three tablespoons of water. Bring to a boil, stirring often, and cook until ginger is transparent and liquid has almost evaporated. Reduce heat and cook, stirring constantly, until almost dry.Toss cooled ginger in sugar to coat. My ginger was really liquid almost the consistency of a caramel, so I poured it onto a cookie sheet and let it cool in the freezer and then broke it into pieces, almost like a ginger brittle.