Last Friday was Canada day so it seemed like an appropriate time to leave the United States of America and head north in our journey through Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery.  It may also be an excellent time to leave the United States of America for Supreme Court related decisions too but that is by the by.  Anyhoo, to celebrate our move to Canada I made a blueberry cake!

Now, blueberry cake is not the first thing I think of when my thoughts turn to Canadian cuisine.  BUT…this chapter was fairly disappointing.  Notably, the first thing I do think of was totally missing.  I mean – WHO ON EARTH HAS A CHAPTER ON CANADIAN COOKING AND DOES NOT INCLUDE A RECIPE FOR POUTINE????

Ok. Let me take a few moments to do some of the deep rhythmic breathing they taught me at the conference I attended recently.  Just.  Breathe. Do not feel disappointed that you will not be making poutine.  When you go to the office on Thursday you can buy some poutine from the very excellently named Lord of The Fries. Which may be even better than making some yourself.  And breathe…

Ok, calming mantra over, let’s get on with the blueberry cake.

Blueberry Cake – The Recipe

The recipe called for lemon flavouring.  We currently have a tree laden with lemons so I used the zest of one lemon and the juice of half a lemon as my “flavouring”.  This added a nice hit of lemon to the cake.  I found this cake to be quite dry – it very much needed a bit of cream or ice cream on the side.  I had some with some homemade Mango Kufli (from Adam Liaw’s recipe) and it was divine.  Mango, lemon and blueberries are a match made in heaven!  I am not sure if this is because I did not have enough blueberries to half fill the loaf pan.  There was a LOT of cake batter to blueberries so for future baking I might halve the batter mixture.  Another variation might be to put a layer of blueberries in the middle or through the cake as well as on the top.

I think the way the blueberries bleed into the cake is so pretty!

Have a great week everyone!