Feeling for blueberries in a cake or just need to find them a place? Let’s make this Blueberry Lemon Loaf for life’s sake!

Unfortunately, once we step out of the domain of plants and animals and more into the world of humans created world, our trust in our intuitions should be questioned highly.

Once we are hooked on something, our very own instinct that are governed by our primitive brain region that betrays us and leads us deeper and deeper in the senseless rabbit hole.

Getting out of such depth by ourselves is nearly impossible until our deep nested needs are satisfied, and our sensible brain part can get back in control of our body.

To catch such behavior and control it once kicks in, is almost impossible for many of us, not because we are weak of will but because we have no say in the matter anymore.

Once our primitive survival primed brain takes control of our body and starts its drills of saving us from imminent danger, social humiliation, boredom, or starvation, we as a thinking entity have no say in the matter, until the situation is declared as solved. (Eating chocolate until there is none, anyone?)

This is, of course, done by a complicated web of hormones released by our brains, replying to visual, audible, or tactile cues. Any action is done by our instinctive brain region later justified by finding compelling reasons to support it by our thinking brain, so we don’t have discrepancies between our actions and thoughts.

This is why we know that smoking, alcohol, gambling, Facebook, or sugar is bad, but we always able to find a reason why we do it again and again. Sure, for some of us, who are genetically superior controlling such behavior may be possible, but for the rest of us, mere humans, we have to find another solution.

As we head more and more into a purely human created world and even beyond, like the virtual world cues that once served as valuable information to navigate through life, become not just obsolete but deceiving and harmful as well.

Not like nature isn’t full of deceiving and harmful things. Just think about how many lives were required for us to know which mushrooms are edible and which sends us to an early grave. Sometimes, they look completely alike and the only thing that differentiate between the two is the season of the year, they grow.

Luckily, berries were easier to figure out than social media or mushrooms and they didn’t require an extensive media training or centuries of human knowledge. Although, there are some that still hasn’t showed us everything, they have hidden under their skin.

Blueberries are fairly low in calories as well as macronutrients so, except if we are smurfs, consuming them will not help us fill our daily protein, fat, or carbohydrate allowance, but these precious little balls are more than what they look.

According to various studies, blueberries may boosts our immune system through more than average amount of antioxidants found in them or even fight cancer if big enough quantities are consumed.

Luckily, blueberries are native to North America, so having them in abundance is not a problem nor getting dishes that use them. If we reach back to traditional recipes before they were overwhelmed by sugar or other artificial sweeteners, we can find almost unlimited use for blueberries from desserts through sauces to meals or anything in between.

But if we aren’t really keen on antioxidant or can’t bring ourselves to munch down on a bag of blueberries a day on its own to wade cancer off, we can still have them simply because we like blueberries in cakes.

Ingredients

Bread

2 medium / 100g Eggs
5 tablespoons / 75g Butter (melted or any cooking oil)
⅞ cup / 200ml Sour cream or Greek yogurt
½ teaspoon / 3g Salt
2 tablespoons / 30ml Honey or sweetener of choice
1 piece / 50ml Lemon’s juice
1 piece / 10g Lemon’s zest
2 teaspoons / 10ml Vanilla extract
2 cups / 250g All purpose flour
2 teaspoons / 8g Baking powder
½ teaspoon / 2g Baking soda
1 cup / 130g Blueberries

Lemon glaze

2 tablespoons / 30g Butter (melted)
1 tablespoon / 15ml Honey or sweetener of choice
2 tablespoons / 30ml Lemon juice
½ teaspoon / 2.5ml Vanilla extract

How to make Blueberry lemon loaf

In a large bowl, beat eggs until light yellow and fluffy.
Beat in melted butter, sour cream or Greek yogurt, salt, honey or sweetener of choice, lemon’s juice, lemon zest, vanilla extract.
Mix in the flour. Some like to do it in batches but with an electric mixer ,we can dump all the flour we like, the machine will do the hard work of mixing everything together in no time.
While the batter is getting ready, coat blueberries in two tablespoons of flour. This step prevents them to sink to the bottom of the baking form.
The last crucial step is to mix baking powder and optional baking soda to the batter. Keep this to the last minute otherwise the acid in the lemon juice, Greek yogurt or Buttermilk will neutralize the baking soda and baking powder which will result in flat dense loaf. Baking soda is optional but it will provide additional flavor to the loaf. Mix the batter well on highest setting of the mixer for a short period of about 1 minute top.
Quickly fold the floured blueberries in but don’t move them too much once in the batter as their flour coating can get off fairly easily. Save a couple of them for the top.
Quickly pour the batter into a baking form and top it with some more blueberries.
Place the blueberry lemonade loaf into the middle rack of a 360°F / 180°C preheated oven until the top turns golden brown which should happen when a kitchen thermometer registers 210°F / 99°C, about 40 minutes.
Mix melted butter with honey or sweetener of choice, lemon juice and vanilla extract.
Wait until the glaze is cool to the touch about 90°F / 32°C and pour it over the blueberry lemonade loaf. Decorate to taste.