Toward the end of the summer I get a feeling that inspires me to think of everyone who has passed through life’s various seasons before me. I somehow take comfort in the fact that other people have experienced the rhythms of the earth more times than I have. And that they’re okay, more than okay. Where fruits and citrus are plentiful, figs, squashes and root vegetables will follow. It forces you to appreciate a more subtle kind of beauty. That being said, let’s just focus on the superficial beauty that these summer days have to offer. I’ve arrived late to the party in realizing the value in superficial aesthetics. Give me sun, bright colors, stunning flowers and suntans. Overload my senses. Subtlety is for thinkers, creative writers and introspective types. Seduce me with the substance of the book another day. Today the focus is on the cover and all the other things that shine.
We are still in the throes of summer and berries still abound. Blueberries have become my new favorite. It used to be raspberries or even the blackberries that grew in the bushes behind my house growing up. This year cherries threatened to take over as the front-runner, but for me, blueberry is still old faithful among all the beauties. I put them in salads, eat entire punnets of them in one sitting during lunch and then again after dinner.
This cake is nuanced, but its beauty is obvious. It actually appeals to both the book readers and those who revel in the beautiful aged and weather-worn cover. I consider this cake a distant, darker beautiful cousin of my favorite olive oil cake and just as easy to make. The warm undertone of hazelnuts from browned butter gives this a very unique flavor, like a buttered and toasted muffin. I watched this video to get the brown butter perfect. And trust me, this is something worth doing. Brown butter just might be the best thing in the world (no hyperbole here). The note of fresh rosemary is what puts this over the top for me. I cannot resist a subtle savory note in a cake like this. It makes all the difference. As Beth suggests in her recipe, I made this while doing laundry, cleaning dishes and working. This cake is definitely a winner. You can put a glaze of powdered sugar and buttermilk on it if you’d like, but I left it as it was and ate it piece by piece for dessert, then breakfast, then lunch. I hope you do too. Work hard, play hard, make this cake!
Adapted from the intrepid Beth Kirby on Local Milk Blog
Blueberry Brown Butter Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 stick / a 1/2 cup butter, browned & chilled until solid but soft
- about 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 tablespoons buttermilk (I used the low fat version)
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
- 1 cup blueberries
Directions:
Heat oven to 350° f. grease a 6-cup bundt pan well with butter. Add flour to a medium bowl. Add baking powder and salt. Sift together well.
In another bowl, mix the solid brown butter, olive oil, and the brown & white sugar until very light and fluffy, about 10 minutes.
Add the eggs one at a time, incorporate the first before adding the second. After the second egg is incorporated add the vanilla.
Add 1/3 of the flour mixture followed by half of the buttermilk, alternating with the next 1/3 of the flour mixture, then the rest of the buttermilk. Mix in the last 1/3 of the flour mixture along with the rosemary. Gently fold in the blueberries.
Spoon the batter into the prepared tin, smooth the top, bang it against the counter 3-4 times to get rid of air bubbles, and bake at 350° f for 30-45 minutes (if doubling the recipe for a 12-cup bundt pan or if using a 6-cup bundt pan with no hole as i have here, increase cooking time to 1 hour – 1 hour 15 minutes and cover with foil after 45 minutes) or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. If at any point the top is a deep, golden brown, but then center is still not cooked, cover the top with tin foil and continue to bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool in pan 20 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edge of the cake, and then invert onto a cooling rack to finish cooling. Enjoy. Buen provecho.
Yummy!
Thank you:)
Delicious combination of ingredients.The cake turned out beautifully. Very appetizing.
Lovely! Nice clicks!
Thank you!
Wow, Amanda. This looks so delicious. Blueberries sound so American to me, they aren’t very easy to come by here (and when they are they are horribly expensive), so this cake is something I would only make on a very, very special occasion. And I probably would eat it all by myself in a corner, not sharing with anyone (just kidding). Love the light in your beautiful pictures! Hope you are having a great vacation!
That’s so funny. I didn’t know that about blueberries. There are blueberry farms everywhere around here and wild bushes too. I ate much of this secretly while alone 😉 thank you, Darya!
Well, I might be wrong, but I think that the blueberries that grow here are different from American ones. We have wild blueberries, but only in Eastern France, and there are very strict rules on how much you are allowed to pick. Those wild blueberries aren’t sold anywhere.
Then there are the farmed blueberries, though I have NEVER seen any on the markets, where they mostly sell Spanish blueberries, or at the best fruit from the South. The prices can be as high as 3-4 euros (4-5$) for 125 gr (4 oz). And they usually taste like nothing and are probably sprayed with pesticides. And then you can always get frozen (usually from the other end of the planet, and also expensive). So yes, good blueberries are very special to me… as I hardly ever get my hands on them. 🙂
That’s really interesting. Now I know what to bring you when I visit at some point!
Que Rico!!!!
Gracias! Me gusto muchisimo, como muffins con mantequia!
Brown butter? Blueberries? Rosemary? You got me! All of my favorite things in one cake that looks epically delicious! Keep up with the beautiful photography and inspiring posts (I’m thinking of making your cherry clafoutis today!).
Thanks so much, Chaya. These are my favorite things too. The rosemary really throws it over the edge. I just love summer so much, I’m trying to celebrate the season. Good luck with all of your wonderful baking. I could take a lesson from you! xox
Amanda (as usual) I love your writing and how it gets me thinking too. As for your cake, it looks wonderful. I’ve been loving blueberries and they are so hard to find in Spain. The last few months in Barcelona I did find some and I’m dreading that in autumn the fruit shops will say to me again: not in season, we don’t have these – even if I’m standing next to a mango, which is never in season in Spain, lol. I’m still in France and for the last few days I’ve been dreaming of new cakes I can bake with blueberries. When I get back to Bcn and if blueberries are around, this cake seems like a lovely candidate to make xx
Gracias, Sofia! Yes, I”m just finding out that blueberries are not easy to find in Europe. That’s so funny to me. They’re everywhere here. I’m so glad you’re still enjoying lovely France. I’m in mini-france right now, Quebec 🙂 I’m enjoying all the lovely things I wish I could in the South of France 🙂 I can’t wait to see all of your wonderful cooking, but I”m glad you’re on a break and enjoying yourself. You deserve it. Un beso.
Oh I’m glad to hear your enjoying a mini-France too. I’m in the north of France, so the weather is not as great as in the South. Luckily today the sun is shining (even if its chilly!). I hope you’re there on a break too 🙂 Besos
I am! Finally and truly loving it. It’s chilly here too. Much further north than nyc but so lovely!
Que lo pases genial, besitos!
Your pics are super cool:-) love the blueberry cake
Thanks so much!
It’s the rosemary that makes it really interesting – I love that picture of it with the butter 😉
Thanks, Md. Yes I agree. The rosemary makes it out of this world and adds depth. I seriously love this.
Making me hungry. This cake looks delicious, and shine it does.
Thanks, Ngan. It’s a new fave 😉 hope you’re well.
Stunning recipe!
Thanks, aunt sue!
crazy good photos! And anything with browned butter is first-rate in my book. This is gorgeous, Amanda. So good!
Thanks, Liz! I agree about the butter. So good!
Can i have a bite!Looks soo tempting!
Aw too sweet. I would totally send you some! Xo
Luckily blueberries are one thing we do have here. This looks like a super recipe for them – I do get a little tired of the old stand-bys and usually just eat blueberries with maple sugar or syrup. Thanks for sharing it, and your beautiful pictures.
Thank you, Hilda. I’m glad you’ve got some blueberries too. This is such an easy recipe. Definitely worth trying.
Lovely recipe Amada… I am so saving it right now! 🙂
Yay! Thanks. I hope you enjoy it!
You’re welcome!! Im sure I will… I hope mine will look as great as yours 😀
I love the deep, nutty flavor of brown butter!
So good, right?!
This cake looks stunning. I have never thought about using rosemary in a cake recipe, but now I will definitely try it. I have vegetable boxes in my garden with a big bush of rosemary in one of them. Thank you for giving me another idea for how to use this herb. Emma.
Great, Emma. You should definitely add it to cakes, scones, salads. I just love rosemary. I’m so jealous of your veggie boxes and herbs! Enjoy them. Thanks for your comment.
Amanda, Darling, what have we got here? Wow! It is a gorgeous cake, a very delectable one. Thank you for the video of how to make a brown butter. So the key is to keep stirring. Did you use hazelnuts or not? I’m not into rosemary. How crucial is rosemary in the recipe? I think the aroma/flavor of the brown butter, blueberry and maybe hazelnut meal would make this a keeper! 🙂
The rosemary is an added bonus for me, but not crucial at all. No hazelnuts either, it just has that flavor or scent when you brown the butter. I have a feeling you would master this easily and then take it to another level. This is a great cake to serve with coffee or tea. You’d rock this cake.
Hi Amanda, very nice. I had seen this cake on Beth’s blog too and was wondering if blackberries would do. We picked so many blackberries I’m trying to find ways to use them! They might be a little too fat and juicy for this recipe though…. Again, nicely done! Looks delicious.
Hey there! Yes I think you could totally do it. I love blackberries. It would taste like a blackberry muffin. I think it would be different but wonderful. Do it! Xo
I love all recipes that contains blueberries <3 no matter what! yours looks great, beautiful photos 🙂
Thank you! Me too. Blueberries are definitely my favorite. Thanks so much for your lovely comment.
Ooooh. I’m making this cake for sure. This was created with me in mind! 🙂 You know how much I adore cakes made with both fresh fruit and herbs. I absolutely love this photo shoot Amanda. The lighting, the color’s and the blueberries scattered beneath the rack are all so wonderfully captured. I’m going to head over and watch the brown butter video. I tried once to brown butter and I could use a tutorial. Your silver tray is gorgeous!
Thanks, Seana! The dish was my grandma’s. It’s like you and I were on the same page this week with summer fruit desserts. It’s a rare day when I get to shoot in natural light so I couldn’t stop!
Hello Amanda! If you were in Quebec – you were so close. We could have visited! Maybe next time.
I love blueberry cake at this time of year – made with fresh blueberries. Makes me all nostalgic for the days of my childhood when we gathered baskets of wild blueberries and didn’t have a care in the world.
Luscious gorgeous photographs. As always. Sometime i want to spend a weekend with you following your camera with my camera. What an incredible treat that would be. xo
Aw! I had no idea you were so close. I would love to visit. I loved Quebec City so much. I had possibly the best meal ive ever eaten there and went to a beautiful market in Montreal. Thank you so much re the photos. I think we may have to get together sometime soon. 🙂
Oh and your childhood memories gathering blueberries sound so nice. I used to pick blackberries. So lovely.
I’ve got lots of blueberries that grow around our apple orchard. This cake with blueberries I have in my freezer and rosemary from my garden, sounds like the perfect end of summer cake for me.
Wow, Karen. That is perfect. How many trees do you have in your orchard? That’s amazing. It must be so beautiful there. I can’t wait to see what you’ll be making this fall!
We have three hundred apple trees (100 different varieties) and about a dozen pear trees in our orchard.
OMG I just went back to your page and searched for ‘apples”. I had no idea! Wow. I knew you had a lovely, huge and amazing garden, but wow. Where are you? I’m so coming to your orchard. That was always my dream…to live on an orchard. I grew up in upstate ny near tons of them, but it’s so special. Wow.
Our home is in southern New Hampshire…what is called the Seacoast Region. We think we have a special place, I’m glad that you like it. 😀
Wow. What a beautiful region. I look forward to your fall posts!!
Hey Amanda, I am coming over to your place for some of this yummy cake, too. Mmmh..
Bueberries, hard to find in Europe? That seems strange, maybe just a freak occurence. We have small native wild ones and big American type blueberries are omnipresent in every supermarket (regardless of season). N.
Ah that is great to hear. I just love blueberries. I’ll have the choice ready for you.