My family and I spent a few days in South Carolina with my parents and had a small family reunion to reconnect with relatives on my father’s maternal grandmother’s side. My dad was very close to his grandmother and remembers her fondly.
We were together over the 4th of July during the height of the confederate flag debate making for some interesting
conversation with some of the older folks that grew up during Jim Crow. Many of them remember what it was like to ride the bus in their small town just after desegregation.
We arrived a few days early to help my parents do some cooking for this large family gathering, my daughter and I were asked to prepare some desserts using whatever we could find in the well stocked pantry and the fridge. There was no need to go shopping for ingredients, they had everything we needed in the house. We got a couple of boxes of cake mix (that made life SO much easier) some cream cheese, butter and fresh blueberries from my mom’s garden.
I made a quick compote with the fresh blueberries that everyone raved about. I cooked the blueberries with a little lemon juice and sugar, then chilled the mixture in the fridge while we made the frosting and baked the cake. Because of the short cooking time the blueberries retain some texture and burst in your mouth when you eat it.
I love the way the blueberry compote collects in the swirls of fluffy cream cheese icing. I think the cake is beautiful as is, great any time of the year but the addition of some sliced strawberries make this the PERFECT patriotic dessert
We baked the yellow cake according to the directions on the box in a 13 x 9 inch pan. Once cooled we topped the cake with the cream cheese frosting and spooned the blueberry compote over the entire thing allowing the thickened blueberry juices to collect in the swirls of frosting. To make the dessert look even more patriotic for the holiday we added some spoonfuls of store bought strawberry preserves but it really could not compete with the fresh blueberry compote. I think adding some slices of fresh strawberries to the top is really pretty and gives us the pop of patriotic red that we need…but that’s entirely optional.
Yellow Cake Recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting and Blueberry Compote
Ingredients
- BLUEBERRY COMPOTE
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
- 1/4 cup of white granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon of water
- CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- one 8 ounce package of cream cheese- softened at room temperature
- one 4 ounce stick of butter softened at room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- One 13 x 9 inch Yellow Cake from a mix made according to package directions
Instructions
- Add all of the blueberry compote ingredients into a saucepan and stir.
- Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Pour finished compote into a container and refrigerate until cool
- Beat the cream cheese in a mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add the butter and beat until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and (you guessed it) beat until smooth
- Set the frosting aside at room temperature until the cake is done
- Bake the cake according to package directions.
- Let the cake cool, remove it from the pan and place it on a platter.
- Spoon the frosting onto the top of the cooled cake, swirling it with the back of your spoon making peaks and valleys to catch the compote
- Spoon the compote over the frosting
- serve
