layered blueberry cake

I saw a recipe/article in a recent issue of the Rachael Ray magazine where the woman baked a cake in a large jelly roll pan so that it was really thin and only took about 15 minutes to bake. I decided to give it a try and brought it to work for a picnic lunch at work on Friday. I was a bit skeptical about the recipe because it only called for 1/2 a cup of flour and that just seemed way too low to me. Instead, I went with a cake recipe from the How to Cook Everything cookbook by Mark Bittman (you all know how much I heart this cookbook!) and I think it turned out great. Super easy to put together and the flavors are so refreshing for warm and sunny summer days.

Ingredients for the cake:

2 cups of flour
2 -1/4 tsps baking powder
4 eggs
1-1/4 sticks of butter (room temperature)
1 cup of sugar
¼ tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
¾ cups of milk
½ tsp salt
1 pint of blueberries

Directions for the cake:

Beat the butter and sugar for a couple of minutes until it’s smooth, then add the eggs one at a time. Add the sugar, extracts, salt, and baking powder and mix well. Then alternate adding the flour and milk until it’s all blended together well. Add ½ of the blueberries, then pour it out into a buttered and floured jelly roll pan (I put a sheet of parchment paper on top of the pan which made it much easier to clean up later).

My batter didn’t reach all of the edges which was fine because I ended up trimming the edges anyway when I cut out the rectangles, and it made for good snacking. Hee hee. Oh and bake it in a 350 oven for 15-18 minutes (I started with 15 minutes but it wasn’t quite brown enough on top). Let it cool in the pan for a few minutes, and then cut it into rectangles. Transfer the rectangles to a cooling rack and let them completely cool before icing.

Icing ingredients:

1 – 8 oz. package of cream cheese (room temperature)
½ cup of prepared lemon curd (I like the Dickinson’s brand)
½ cup of sugar

Directions:

Blend all three ingredients until smooth. Then spread the love.

I stored the cake in my cake carrier with the lid on in the refrigerator overnight, and then let it thaw out to room temperature before we cut into it at lunch time (around 12:30 pm). The cake stayed nice and moist that way vs. the piece that I made for my husband that I put in the fridge without anything covering it. The cake got tougher overnight, but it was still yummy.

I can see using this technique of layering with different fillings in the future for other fun cake ideas. It really is pretty quick to put together from start to finish. Enjoy!