A Slice of Summer: Blueberry Rice Flour Cake and Reflections on Japanese Rice

🍰 Blueberry Rice Flour Cake: A Gentle Slice of Family and Thought

The other day, I received a generous gift of blueberries from a neighbor.
Among the various ways I preserved them, I made semi-dried blueberries and stored them in the freezer.

Today, I used those berries to bake a blueberry rice flour cake.

🧁 Recipe: Blueberry Rice Flour Cake (One Loaf Pan)

Ingredients

• 130g rice flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg
• 40g sugar (brown sugar or beet sugar also work well)
• 100ml milk
• 2 tsp vegetable oil (rice oil is great too)
• ½ cup semi-dried blueberries

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 170°C (340°F). Grease the loaf pan.
2. In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in sugar, milk, and oil.
3. Add rice flour and baking powder, and gently fold with a spatula.
4. Stir in the semi-dried blueberries and pour the batter into the pan.
5. Bake for about 30 minutes. If a toothpick comes out clean, it’s done!

This time, I used rice flour and rice oil.
Rice flour cakes may not be as chewy as those made with wheat flour, since they’re gluten-free,
but they’re light and easy on the stomach—no heaviness, just gentle satisfaction.

At our local supermarket, they sometimes sell rice flour chiffon cakes.
They’re so fluffy and airy, I absolutely love them.
Honestly, they’re dangerously delicious—I could eat them endlessly.

🏡 A Sunday Table Shared with Family

Today was Sunday, and both of my sons were home, so we shared the cake together.

It baked beautifully all the way through.

I sliced it into three plates with two pieces each.
Only one slice was left… and my husband didn’t get any.
That last piece? My younger son, who loves the end pieces, claimed it.
So I might just bake another one later.

🍵 Tea Pairing: Kaminari-issa Milk Tea

We paired it with Japanese black tea from Kaminari-issa.

The leaves were fine, so I made it into a milk tea.

I hadn’t planned anything special when I baked this cake,
but as we ate, I found myself thinking about rice.

🌾 Thoughts on Rice, Weather, and the Future

Here in Akita, it hasn’t rained for days, and the heat continues.
I saw a report saying that if it doesn’t rain within three more days, rice farming in some regions could be devastated.

Right now, I can still bake this cake with domestically grown rice flour and rice oil.
But if this weather continues, who knows what next year will bring?

Even now, the price of Japanese rice is rising.
Imports are increasing, and exports are expected to grow as well.
It’s possible that, even as Japanese people, we may find it harder to eat Japanese-grown rice in the future.

If that happens, rice flour and rice oil might be made from foreign-grown rice instead.
The taste and texture may subtly change.
The sense of comfort from “baked with Japanese rice” might fade.
And quietly, even in processed foods, Japanese rice culture may begin to disappear.

That thought made me feel a little sad.

💭 A Quiet Hope in Each Slice

So today, as I ate this cake, I savored it a little more deeply—
hoping that next year, I’ll still be able to bake the same cake with the same rice flour.