Insert Food Pun Here: How to Properly Mail Your Friend a Cake

What you'll need:

1-1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 a Lemon's Worth of Zest, if you so desire
1 to 1-1/2 Cups Fresh or Frozen Blueberries
1/2 Cup or 1 Stick Butter
3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
2 Large Eggs
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, with a rack in the center.

Before you start anything else, find a pan. Since I was mailing this, a completely optional step, I used a loaf pan somewhere around 9"x5"x3". When you've found you desired pan, butter and then flour said pan. This guarantees a clean break-up. Your pan should eventually look like this:

Buttered, floured loaf pan. Photo by J.Cust

Now you can start baking.

In a medium bowl, combine the AP flour, baking powder, and salt. Some people advise setting aside a tablespoon of this mixture to coat the berries so they don't sink while baking. It's an extra step I've never done, because I've never had berries sink. Either way works.

AP, BP, and salt. Photo by J.Cust

Melt your butter. Most people go for room temp butter, but it's easier, with this recipe at least, just to melt the whole stick.

In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and sugar. Then beat in your eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla. You can also add your lemon zest at this point.

Butter sugar, before beating in eggs and vanilla. Photo by J.Cust

Butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Photo by J.Cust

Now add you flour mixture and milk in batches. Flour, milk, flour, milk, flour. Make sure you mix well between each addition. At times, the batter will look...questionable... but never fear, it's part of the process.

Flour. Photo by J.Cust

Milk. Photo by J.Cust

All together! Photo by J.Cust

Now loose the whisk, and grab a spatula. This is where you want to be gentle, and fold in your blueberries. Those glorious, glorious berries.

Frozen berries. Photo by J.Cust

Frozen berries on the batter. Photo by J.Cust

Frozen berries in the batter. Photo by J.Cust

Scrape your batter in the pan. Level it out, either with the spatula or by banging the pan on the counter a few times. The banging method has the added benefit of getting out any air bubbles, although this is a pretty thick batter where air bubbles don't have that much of an influence.

In the pan we go. Photo by J.Cust

Pop that sucker in the oven for 50 to 60 minutes and bake until the cake is golden brown, and the toothpick you insert into the middle comes out clean. This is where it helps to know your oven. You might have to go over or under the time, so just keep your nose and eye on the cake.