A BLUEBERRY KIND OF DAY

One of the things I always loved about being a mother was birthdays, where I could make a special cake, such as a train, a doll's dress, a piano, etc.  It was always such fun to think of a cake that matched something current in Jonel's life.  I think of all the cakes I made her, the upright piano cake was my favorite.  She was in high school, and studying the recorder as well as the piano.  I made a tiny sheet of the music which I propped on the piano, and a little vase of flowers on the top.

Now with granddaughters I get to do this double-fold.  I have made a dog, a monkey, a chick to name just a few.  This year I asked Elsa what she wanted me to make for her cake...Elsa the blueberry lover said "a blueberry cake"  I asked what shape and she said round.  So I initially thought, easy a blueberry layer cake.  But the more I thought about it the more I realized that this soon-to-be-three year old, plucked the blueberries out of muffins and mostly just ate those, so I doubted she wanted a cake with blueberries in it.  Giving it all a bit more thought over the days, I realized she probably really did not have a concept of a 9" layer cake as round, to her round probably meant round like a blueberry.  Duh!

Now this was a challenge.

 

 

 

THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!!

The start of the birthday cake.  This was a great tasting cake and I, if anyone wished, could include the recipe.  I thought a lot about how I was going to accomplish a 'round' blueberry like cake, and decided the best I could do was a bunch of blueberries.  I used the smallest of my stainless steel bowls, of which I had two.  It took quite a while to bake all of the batter, two bowls at a time.

...butter and floured bowls before baking...

While the first two 'berries' were baking, I toyed around with cream cheese for frosting.  I had wanted to frost each small cake a deep blue and thought I could accomplish coloring with the blueberries.  Wrong, this only gave me a pinkish hue.  I tried blue food dye, (see above) but knew I really did not want the children ingesting this stuff.  It surely isn't a friendly food.  So searching for another idea.

First two 'berries' out of the oven.

 

All of them out of the oven and split in the middle.

A blueberry sauce spread on each....

Cream cheese frosting applied all around....

....blueberries covering each little round berry, was the closest I could come to a blue frosting....

A few flowers from the yard, an actual blueberry blossom and blueberry bush leaves from a neighbors bushes, and the cake is complete.   Elsa loved it!!!