My boyfriend's mom recently bought me the Smitten Kitchen cookbook by Deb Perelman that I've been eyeing at the bookstore. It was a graduation gift along with a Sur La Table gift card! So, almost immediately after getting the cookbook, I flipped through and decided to make something easily shareable that was meant to be cut into small-ish pieces.
The blueberry cornmeal butter cake was perfect, as it yielded 16 squares of cake and there's on average 10-15 people in my office on any given day. Plus, since it has blueberry and a crumble top (things I love to add in my baking,) I just couldn't resist.
Although the recipe called for a lot of ingredients, most I already had. The unusual ingredients were 1/3 cup of sour cream, 1/4 tsp lemon zest, and 2 cups of blueberries. I realize that some people probably don't have cornmeal lying around, but I like to make homemade pizza and put cornmeal down on the baking sheet, hence I have plenty of cornmeal!
Also, the great part of this recipe is that you don't have to chill the dough or set anything funky aside. I think it's great when you can turn on the oven, make the recipe, then start baking immediately.
This cake was pretty light, so I ate a piece for breakfast the morning after I made it. But it would also work great for a summertime dessert.
One day, I'd love to have my own cookbook or book of travel photos and stories or a memoir of the great love story that my boyfriend and I share. Therefore, I won't post the recipe, but instead encourage you to buy the Smitten Kitchen cookbook or rent it from the library and make photocopies. The recipe, so far as I could tell, wasn't on the Smitten Kitchen blog. This makes sense, because some people would never go get the book if the recipe was online. But I would because seriously, this book is beautiful!
It's really starting to feel like summer now that I'm baking so many more new recipes. Yay!
