Sadly, the blueberries aren't from Nova Scotia (much too early). They're from my freezer. Anyway, I had the placemats and thought it would be an appropriate background, if not wholly accurate.
The recipe is from The New York Times Heritage Cookbook. It really isn't all that special-it reminds me of a cross between blueberry muffins and a buckle. It could have used lemon zest-maybe even a bit of vanilla. The dough was easy enough to make but difficult to handle and mine did split in two coming off the pan. My husband liked it, and in the right mood, I probably would too-but today it struck me as terribly ho-hum.
You Will Need:
1 cup blueberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling the berries
2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk (aprox)
Place the blueberries in a bowl. Sprinkle with lemon and sugar.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a baking sheet.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and 2 cups of sugar
Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers until it is a fine meal. Beat the eggs in a measuring cup and add enough milk to total 3/4 cup. You probably won't need all of it.
Stir the liquid slowly into the flour to make a soft (not wet) dough. You will need to be able to roll it out, so keep this in mind as you add.
Roll out the dough to 1/2 inch thickness in an oblong approximately 10x15 inches. Spread with blueberries and roll-up from the wide end. Place seam side down on a greased baking sheet and bake 40-45 minutes or until golden. Cool ten minutes on pan, then transfer to a rack. Dust with powdered sugar and serve slightly warm.
I have it on good authority that Cape Breton blueberries are full of carcinogens. It's the only reason I'm not living on a blueberry farm in Nova Scotia right now.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you survived the first few storms. The weather in Nebraska etc made the national news up here last night.
Seriously? We have this idea that everything up the Atlantic coast is so much more pure. Even the people in Maine buy into that when heaven knows they have no shortage of fish, berries and potatoes-the Canadian ones are thought to be somehow cleaner. At least that was the thinking years back. Sometimes I really think the whole bloody world is poisoned beyond repair. I'm told we need to pitch the tinned foods along with all the plastic now. I wonder where all that discarded plastic is going except back into the soil and groundwater?
ReplyDeleteThat storm last night scared me pretty bad. Danny was having a blast though:
"The radio said stay away from windows and doors. When do we get to take shelter? Can we take shelter now?"
Yikes.
Now that it's been a few days, is it safe to ask how the "Still Life With Sharpie" situation is?
It's all the coal mining they do in Cape Breton, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAh, the sharpie. I still get a little angry when I look at the china cabinet, but I'm dealing with it. We're going to have to paint the damn thing, we can't get the ink out. I'm looking at something called milk paint to get an "authentic antique" look.