I had to stop at the grocery store the other night because I'm an idiot, and didn't think to get tortilla's for the steak fajita's I was making that night. While I was there, I browsed through the produce department for a minute, and can I just say how much I love summer fruit? Watermelon, raspberries, blackberries, peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries, I love them all. Especially peaches, but we'll get to that later on this summer. Peaches here are still sort of anemic looking.
One summer fruit I've never really been super fond of though, is blueberries. They're okay, I guess, but they're not amazing. I like blueberry muffins, and blueberry pancakes(although not as much as I love chocolate chip pancakes) but that's about it. They're just not my favorite. My husband, however loves them. He's constantly bugging me to make blueberry pie. Since that's something I would never ever eat, he's in for a long wait on that one.
But, on this fateful afternoon, I was passing a display, and the blueberries were on sale, and they actually looked pretty nice. So, I decided to be a good wife, and make something blueberry for my hubby.
I bought two packages of blueberries, and remembered seeing a recipe that I was pretty sure I had everything on hand for in one of my cookbooks. I didn't have everything on hand. And I wasn't about to go back to the store just for shortening, so Jim would have to wait.
The next night, however, I stopped at the store, bought shortening, came home and whipped up this little baby.
I really really like it. I had never heard of Blueberry Buckle before, but it's sort of like a giant blueberry muffin. Or a blueberry coffee cake. I did a little digging to find out what exactly is a buckle, and this is what I came up with: During the baking process, the cake batter rises up around the fruit, encasing the fruit in batter and causing the streusel to buckle, creating a distinctive crinkly appearance.
Well, mine didn't seem to have a distinctive, crinkle appearance, but it was pretty darn good.
Ingredients Needed:
2 1/3 cups, all purpose flour, divided
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup sugar, divided
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 cups blueberries, well drained
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened.
To Make:
Preheat oven to 375. Sift 2 cups flour, baking powder and salt together. In a mixing bowl cream 3/4 cup sugar, shortening and egg together until smooth(about 2 minutes or so). Blend in the milk, then the dry ingredients, then fold in the blueberries. Spread the batter into a greased and floured 9x9x2 baking dish(I actually had a bit of a problem with this, the batter is very thick, and wanted to stick to everything but the baking dish. A little spritz of non-stick cooking spray on a spatula worked wonders). Combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar with 1/3 cup flour and cinnamon. Cut in the butter to form a crumb consistency. Sprinkle this on top of the batter. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
And I know it says to serve warm, but I had some for breakfast this morning, and it's just a good cold.
This may change my mind about blueberries.
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