On Saturday, Cameron and I went blueberry picking. Prior to this year, the closest I came to picking anything was... honeysuckles off bushes as a kid. (You so thought I was going to say my nose, didn't you?) Earlier this year, they boys and I went strawberry picking and had great fun. Thankfully, we had the foresight to leave Benjamin home for this adventure. Blueberry picking was a bit more or a meticulous and time-consuming endeavor.
Jason and I went out to breakfast earlier in the morning. Due to putting off doing laundry (and shaving my legs), my Saturday attire was an ankle length skirt. One might think this was a poor choice for blueberry picking, but au contraire. I quickly devised a method of sitting on the ground, laying out my skirt before me and twiddling (yes, that's a technologically agricultural term) the group of berries. I discovered that only the ripe berries would easily fall from the bush. Then, I only had to scoop up my skirt and add the berries to the collection. I was easily able to fill my large basket in under an hour.
Sunday morning Jason made blueberry pancakes (I think from scratch, but you know I was still in bed!). Benjamin has had a Joker-style blueberry grin over the past few days. I have pinned enough blueberry recipes to rewrite the Bubba Gump shrimp monologue to a fruity equivalent (blueberry sweet rolls, blueberry ice cream, blueberry hand pies, and on, and on). (Yes, seriously, "hand pies.")
And, then the cake.
Ooohhh, the cake.
I suggested to Jason that it should have some Victorian or Pioneer name like the "Patience" cake because it took a whole lot of patience to get it done. Jason, on the other hand, suggested the Veni Vidi Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) because making this cake... was a freaking battle.
Let me add the disclaimer here that many eons before I began to detest cooking, I actually had a modest side business in making cakes. This predates the current artistic fondant creations but was during a time when aspiring cake decorators gathered in craft stores after hours to perfect the Wilton rose. My point is, I know how to make a cake. If you were around this house the past few days though, you might think otherwise.
My journey with the Blueberry Lemon pound cake began Saturday afternoon... and it ended four days later. Between feeling sick, then having a back ache, then thinking there was a leaky sink, then having the fam descend on the kitchen just as I was about to go Betty Crocker.
Finally, eggs start cracking and mixers starts beating to realize I added double the amount of cream cheese that the recipe required... but didn't have double the amount of other ingredients to just go ahead and double the whole batch. Baking was halted by trip to store for new cream cheese and lemon... only to get back home and find that I didn't have enough sugar, even after raiding the sugar container for coffee.
So, the cake was put off until this morning when we could make yet another store run for the needed sugar... and now eggs. Miraculously at this point, four days later, the cake gets baked. Ohh, but wait! As I go to make the glaze, there's a fleck in the confectioner's sugar... and it's moving. An ant? Seriously? An ant in the sealed 10x bag! So back to the grocery store... AGAIN... to pick up the needed sugar for the glaze. So finally, finallyfinallyfinally, I came back home to put the final touches on the cake to discover...
that a culprit bigger than an ant was my problem. More specifically a 3-year old blueberry-loving bandit and helped himself to a few pinches of cake while I was out.
Eventually, the cake is finished... four days later than anticipated.
About to go get a slice now and really hope it was a labor of love!
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