Have Your Sour Cream Vanilla and Blueberry Cake and Eat it for Easter

Hot off the press, Have Your Cake and Eat It: Nutritious, Delicious Recipes for Healthier Everyday Baking by Mich Turner, is a beautiful new baking book from Sterling Epicure that features the work of the celebrity baker who has fashioned delectable desserts for Downton Abbey and Buckingham Palace!

I was so inspired, page after page of gorgeous creations, Almond Toscaners, Lemon Meringue Chiffon, Chocolate and Coffee Roulade… and where possible, Turner points out ways to make her recipes healthier. Sugar is sugar, but in the fat department, there is room for improvement. And many of the cakes have prunes and dates and fruits and nuts and oats to vie for righteousness.

I really appreciated the design ideas—Turner is a master in presentation and in the cake I chose to make here, I adapted a recipe to have a structural variation from the “Skinnylicious Vanilla Cake” –which involves sparing frosting in exchange for meringue.

Sour Cream Vanilla and Blueberry Cake

Adapted from Have Your Cake and Eat It

Cake

2 sticks of butter, softened

1 cup superfine sugar

4 medium eggs

1 TB vanilla bean paste

2 cups self-rising flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ cup sour cream

2 cups blueberries

 

Frosting

2/3 cups cream cheese

½ cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

¼ cup sour cream

 

Meringue

1 ½ cup superfine sugar

1 ounce light corn syrup

¼ cup water

4 medium egg whites (5 ounces)

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease and line with parchment two 8 inch round pans. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy, then add beaten eggs one at a time. Beat well. Add vanilla paste. Sift flour and baking powder together and fold that in. Stir in sour cream, then finally fold in 1 cup of the blueberries. Spoon batter evenly into each pan and then bake for 45 minutes. Let cool then chill for several hours.

For the frosting, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and sour cream. Chill for 30 minutes. Spread onto both tops of the cakes.

For the meringue, measure the corn syrup, sugar and water into a saucepan and heat over medium heat. Stir until temp gets to 176 F, then don’t stir until temp gets to 230 F. Put egg whites into a clean bowl and start whisking on full speed. When the syrup gets to 246 F, remove the pan from heat and while the egg beater is still going, slowly pour a steady stream into the whites. Keep whisking until it looks glossy and is a little cooled down, then use right away.

Put meringue into a frosting bag and fit with an open rosette pipetter, and pipe a layer in a flowery pattern on to the top of each half, stacking them up so it looks like an ice cream sandwich. A beautiful ice cream sandwich. Torch the meringue so the lines get better defined.

Wow the masses.

It went great with Easter. Also these napkins mom sent.

The cake tasted especially rewarding after the Crescent City Classic. Selfies with Mr. T (on the course) to follow…

Also, big thanks to Sterling Epicure for a complimentary copy of this book.