Curing A Little Writer's Block

As you can probably guess from the title I am having a little writer's block......major writer's block really.  In fact I have been questioning just all together how interesting writing about food can really be?  It's not like I am traveling to exotic places, or doing something cool like eating my way through Italy while telling you about the meaning of life. 

No, I am just another boring home cook telling you about my boring life!  Ok, maybe I should take a deep breath and get off that subject.  Whew!  Anyway, I have been doing so much cooking lately I think the source of my writer's block might be from a little cooking fatigue (how is this possible?).  The sad state of my personal physique is not helping things at all as well, because I am literally growing by the minute, as a result of all this cooking.
So today I attempted to remove my mental block by engaging in an afternoon of classic brainstorming, but in the end I quite literally sat on my butt most of the day, watching Harry Potter way too many times, drinking too much tea, and not coming up with any ideas on the following: what recipe to post, what to write, and how to demonstrate, in some small measure, that I am interesting enough to risk reading this silly blog on a regular basis. I think it was about after my third run through Harry Potter that I looked over at my dark kitchen and decided get up off my big butt and cook something, anything, in the hopes of restoring some inspiration to my blogging life.  Because the best way to ride the bull is to get back on after you fall, right? 

Now I know I am suppose to try to be inventive and interesting and I know I have already posted something involving blood oranges before but I just have too many of them in my refrigerator to ignore and damn it, it's my blog so I will use them again as a last ditch effort to bring me back from the brink of writers purgatory.  So to end this useless story I whipped, I stirred and I baked, and in the end made something delicious.  And even though I still feel like I am facing a writing wall I feel like I have taken a few steps back, back enough to blog another day.  Now hopefully for the next post I can find a way to be interesting.

Blood Orange Pound Cake With Blueberries
And Cardamom Scented Whip Cream

Cook Time: 1-1/2 hours

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup sugar

4 eggs at room temperature

3/4 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste

1 tablespoon blood orange zest

1/3 cup blood orange juice

2 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon blood orange juice

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Cardamom Whip Cream:
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons sugar

Fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place baking rack in the middle of the oven.  Butter and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan and set aside.  In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda.  Set aside.  Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment whip the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 4 minutes. 

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Add the vanilla bean paste and zest, and mix well.  Add the sour cream, then half of the flour mixture, the juice, then the remaining flour.  Mix well between each addition of the wet and dry ingredients. 

Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes.  If the cake starts to get too brown cover with a piece of foil.  Remove the cake from the oven and place on a rack and cool for 10 minutes in the pan.  After 10 minutes invert the loaf pan and remove the cake from pan. 

For the glaze combine the powdered sugar, orange juice and vanilla.  Drizzle the glaze over the cake while still warm and allow to cool completely.  While the cake is cooling in a medium bowl beat the whip cream until soft peaks form. 

Add the spices, vanilla and sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  To serve, once the cake is cooled, slice the cake and spoon some of the cream over the cake.  Top with the blueberries.