Recipe for Blueberry Torte—Improvised!

 When it comes to heavy cream for my recipes, I’m kinda spoiled.

I always buy my favorite local brand, from just across the county. Packaged in a reusable glass bottle, the cream is made from Jersey cows, and is a beautiful golden color. It’s non-homogenized too, so the cream rises to the top—and you have to shake the bottle to use it. 

Just the way your grandmother probably had to do to use heavy cream, and her grandmother before her!

A few days ago, as our blueberry crop was winding down, I knew time was getting short: if I wanted to made my “Blueberry Bliss” torte—one of my all-time favorite desserts—I’d have to hop to it before the shrubs stopped bearing. 

The torte is very simple: a graham cracker crust filled with sweetened cream cheese mixed with whipped heavy cream, topped with blueberry sauce. 

Recipe from the 80s (or older!)

Here’s the original recipe (from the Browne family cookbook), with my updates/modifications. There’s a close-up photo below. You can find my original “Blueberry Bliss” post from August 2018.

So on my next trip to the Co-op, I went to the dairy aisle for the cream—and could hardly believe my eyes. They no longer carried my lovely brand of local, Jersey-milk heavy cream!

I’m guessing is, the management decided schlepping the used glass bottles back to the dairy had gotten to be too much of a hassle. 

In any event, all the heavy cream the Co-op carried was a national organic brand. The price for one pint was—hold on to your wallet—$7.89! I could hardly believe my eyes. 

Now, I’m sure this national brand tastes okay—but at $7.89, it had better be unforgettably yummy. 

The other thing is, this cream is ultra-pasteurized. Like almost all the heavy cream on the market.

Ultra-pasteurized means the milk is heated to 280 degrees, which basically kills all the bacteria—and gives the milk a much longer shelf life. The problem is, this process also kills the helpful bacteria in the milk, as well as the enzymes that give it flavor. 

Call me a snob, but I just won’t use that stuff.

Luckily, the little supermarket 15 miles away from our place still carried the local brand. So I approached the dairy section…and imagine my disappointment with all they had was milk and pint bottles of half-and-half. NO heavy cream!

Well, I had a decision to make. Miss out on my blissful dessert? Or try and make half-and-half work? 

The other advantage of the half-and-half: it was $2.99!

I conjured up my homesteady mindset—meaning, first, being thrifty…and second, dialing down my expectations of the perfect dessert and just making do with what I had. 

And decided to go for it.

Un-homogenized half-and-half

So I bought the bottle of half and half. As you see in the photo, it is actually half cream on the top, and what looks like low-fat milk on the bottom half. The only way to get the cream was to scrape it out of the bottle with a knife. 

When I’d gotten out as much as I could, I strained the milk to extract the last bits of cream. It was a pain, and made quite a mess. And all I ended up with was about 3/4 cup of cream. Not the 1 generous cup I needed for the recipe.

Well, 3/4 cup was better than nothing! So I whipped it up, and mixed it in with the cream cheese, and proceeded with the rest of the recipe.

The creamy filling ended up being not as abundant as the regular recipe—who knew that 1/4 cup of cream would make a noticeable difference. But it was still tasty. And John loved it!

Torte waiting for the blueberry sauce topping

And we got to experience our Blueberry Bliss dessert for this summer’s blueberry season!

You can also find my Blueberry Bliss post at www.susancolleenbrowne.com/blog !

The finished blueberry sauce, cooling