BLUIES!

I substituted the chocolate in a brownie recipe with a condensed blueberry syrup I made using fresh blueberries. It retains the brownie texture, although it is a little more cake-like. But, the surprising thing was that it tastes really good! Bluies have a very intense blueberry flavor. Here’s what I did.

Ingredients:

2 generous cups fresh blueberries washed and stemmed
grated rind of one lemon
1 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 heaping cup of flour
1 1/2 cups generous walnut halves toasted in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Crush with your hand before adding to the batter

Method:

In a large sauce pan on medium heat, cook the berries for about 5 minutes until they start to burst open. Gently smash them using a fork or potato masher. Hot berries can squirt hot juice on you! Reduce the heat a little and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, or until most all of the liquid has evaporated and you have a thick syrup. Make sure this is thick or you won’t get enough of a real blueberry flavor. If you stir the blueberries, you should see the bottom of the pot and the syrup will not flow back to fill it in. That’s when it is ready. Add the lemon rind and stir just before you take it off the stove.

Immediately take off the heat and add the butter stirring to melt. When melted, add the sugars and stir to combine. After the sugars have been incorporated, the mixture should be cool enough to add the eggs. Add them one at a time mixing each one well into the batter. Then add the vanilla and lemon juice.

In a small bowl mix the flour, cinnamon, and salt with a fork to combine. Add the flour mixture all at once gently folding the flour into the mixture. When all combined, beat the mixture 60 o 80 strokes. Then add the toasted walnuts and stir to combine.

Pour into a prepared 8″ square cake pan and bake at 350 for 45 to 60 minutes. Test as you would for brownies. Cool before cutting and serving.

And, you have BLUIES! The cake is deep purple all the way through. This was a neat experiment.

NOTE: unlike brownies, the Bluies didn’t shrink back from the edge of the pan. I looked for an even “puff” across the top, plus I used a toothpick in the center and made sure it came out almost clean.