Lemon Blueberry Tartlets

There are two types of lemon tarts, those with baked lemon cream, which I made before here, and those filled with lemon curd. I like both versions, even though I think the lemon curd ones taste more fresh and fruity. Instead of meringue I like to top them with fresh berries. It's delicious and also gives a nice color contrast.

Unfortunately I missed going to the forest to pick some wild blueberries this year, but I still found some nice ones at the farmers market. Feel free to top them with any berries you like.

On a site note I am happy to announce that I am the Winner at the Originality Category at this month' DMBLGIT contest with my picture of the strawberry balsamic ice-cream. Thanks to Sihi from wandering ladle for hosting this month event and congratulations to my fellow winners. Check out all the beautiful pictures on Sihi's blog.

Blueberry Buttermilk Streusel Cake

Blueberries are a real treat in summer, and I think the best are the wild variety, as for most fruits. Luckily we found our spot for wild blueberries in the forest again this year. It is not the fastest or easiest fruit to pick, but it's worth the effort. People here used to do it with a big comb, but that method is not good for the blueberry shrubs as it takes off a lot of leaves, smaller branches, and unripe berries.

This cake is almost like a giant blueberry muffin, with a nice moist batter, made with buttermilk, and crunchy streusel on top. It tastes best on the day you make it, topped with freshly whipped cream. But you can store it under a cake dome for about 3 days, and it will still be good.

Daring Bakers: Baked Alaska with Blueberry-Ricotta ice-cream

Well, I never thought of putting ice-cream into a hot oven, but this month it was time to try something daring. Yup, it's Daring Bakers' time again. This month challenge was to make a Baked Alaska. A Baked Alaska is a dessert which contains of a cake base, in this case a totally yummy brown butter cake, this is topped with ice cream. Then the whole cake is spread with meringue, which serves as an insulator, when the cake is put in the oven.

For the ice-cream I made a Blueberry-Ricotta ice-cream. We were lucky the other day, when we took a hike to find a huge patch of wild blueberries. There were endless bushes of ripe and juicy berries, and in no time we had filled our basket. Those wild berries have a lot of flavor and made the ice-cream really stand out.

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Blueberry-Jam Cake

I am in the process of cleaning up my pantry, since we will soon be moving again. I discovered the joy of jam making last summer and have still several jars stored in my pantry. So, what should I do with all of them? We can certainly not finish them up by spreading them on our morning toast, so I was searching for other ideas. I  have decided to make a jam cake, something I never tried before or even heard of. I found several recipes that sounded delicious. And the best thing is that a whole glass of jam is used in one cake.

I chose a recipe from the lovely blog "honey and jam" for a blackberry jam cake. I didn't label most of my jams, because I was sure I would still know later which one is which. Well, it wasn't the case, I opened one of my blueberry lavender jams instead. But as it turned out it was a very good choice for the cake. I also used brown sugar instead of regular and reduced the amount. Then I added a cup of chopped walnuts, which fit very well.

I really liked the cake, it was moist and tasted very fruity. I will definitely make it again with some of my other jams.