Thomas' Blueberry Souffle

This morning we had a long car ride to a doctors appointment and on the way home my 5 year old said he wanted to try making up a recipe. He had thought it all up and just wanted to tell me the ingredients so we could make it when we got home. Here is his list:

2 eggs
some flour
lots of blueberries
a block of butter, melted
a pinch or two of salt
some sugar
half a mug of milk

When we got home I looked through some of my books and tried to find a recipe that had all of these ingredients. I found a recipe showed him the picture, expecting to see an excited face. Instead I turned to him and got quite a dirty look. A big frown and in a whiny voice, "Nooooo!". Hands on hips, pointing to the picture, "Mom, has someone MADE that before? Because if they have then it wouldn't be MY recipe and I want it to be MY invention." Okay. So I agreed to wing it with him. I wing it all the time when I am cooking regular food. I rarely use a recipe to make dinner, but not so with baking. I don't really love baking and the necessary precision always makes me a little nervous. I decided to use a pudding cake recipe as a guideline. I have made this recipe so many times that I know it in my head so he didn't KNOW I was using it as a guideline. Delightfully sneaky, I know.

Here is the recipe we finally came up with. It came out really well. Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be very good. I knew it would be edible but I didn't expect it to be something I'd ever make again. But I will. Definitely. Maybe I have a future Top Chef contestant on my hands!



Thomas' Blueberry Souffle
(which is really more like a pudding cake)

4 C blueberries, I used frozen but fresh would be even better
2 T vanilla sugar
1 t cornstarch

6 T butter, melted and then cooled some
1 C sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs

1 C flour, I used about 3/4 whole wheat and 1/4 all purpose because it was all I had on hand, in the future I would make it with all all-purpose flour
1 3/4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

In a bowl, mix together blueberries, sugar and cornstarch and set aside.

In a separate bowl whisk together the butter, milk and eggs until well combined

In a third bowl stir together dry ingredients until well mixed. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir just to incorporate but no longer than that.

Pour half of the batter into the baking dish, pour blueberries on top, then pour remaining batter over the blueberries, allowing some of the fruit to poke through in places.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, until really brown on top and cooked through the middle.