Beautiful Blueberries!

My dear friend Ronnie invited me come eat lunch with her last week. It is about a 120 mile round trip, but I always enjoy being with her and we have so much fun. But she also tempted me with a beautiful basket of berries. Blueberries. Organic, fresh-picked and bursting with sweetness. Better than that is that these were grown by Ronnie so I know that there are no pesticides or any other nastiness lurking around on this beautiful fruit.

I ate several handfuls on the way home but what do you really do with pounds of berries? Get busy cooking, that’s what you do!

Blueberry Streusel Bundt Cake

For the topping:

1/2 Cup all purpose flour

1/2 Cup of oats (quick cooking is fine, instant is not)

4-6 Tablespoons of butter, softened but not mushy

1/4 Cup brown sugar (light or dark is fine)

pinch of salt IF you used unsalted butter

dash of cinnamon (I don’t use this but we all like options)

Mix together flour, oats, sugar and the salt and cinnamon (if you used). Using a pastry blender or a fork, cut in the softened butter a tablespoon at a time. You want nice clumps to form.

Now cover the topping and place in the refrigerator while we mix up the cake batter.

Cake batter ingredients:

2 Cups of all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 stick of butter, at room temperature

1 Cup of sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon almond extract

3 Tablespoons of Creme de Cassis

1 Cup of buttermilk or sour cream (I used buttermilk)

I used about 4 cups of fresh blueberries

For this recipe grease and flour a bundt pan and heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Let’s rock and roll!

First, measure out your dry ingredients into a large bowl. Flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Next bust out the big KitchenAid or whatever brand of stand mixer you have. Don’t have one? No problem but this will take a bit of arm strength. Start by measuring out the sugar and drop the stick butter into the bowl.

Beat together the sugar and the butter until the mixture is creamy and pale.

Next add in your eggs

Advice:

Years ago when dear mum taught me how to cook, she insisted that I always break eggs into another vessel prior to adding them to the mixture. Being one to buck the system, I didn’t always listen much less understand why. The day I broke a rotten egg into a nearly completed batch of brownies, I became a convert. Yes, mum really does know best.

Now add the remaining ingredients of almond extract, creme de cassis and the buttermilk or sour cream. Mix well. Next using a large spoon add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients a spoonful at a time. This prevents that dreaded “Poof” of flour that sometimes occurs when adding dry to wet. It also keeps your arm from wanting to fall off while you hold it at some odd angle, if you tend elevate the bowl of flour up while adding it to your wet ingredients. After all that you should have a lovely, smooth batter that is slightly thick and heavy.

Now a word about that strange ingredient, Creme de Cassis. It is a liquor made in France out of black currants. It is a sweet, fruity concoction mostly intended as a mixer. However, I have found that when using blueberries, the creme de cassis takes the fruit to the next level. It truly adds depth to the flavor of the cake. You can also mix it with cut strawberries and blueberries with angel food cake, or just drizzle this purpley goodness right over vanilla ice cream.  But I digress…..

Next wash up those beautiful berries and pick through them to make sure that there are no stems, twigs or leaves. Dry them off as best you can.

Now take those beautiful berries and FOLD them into your batter. Fold means to gently combine from top to bottom. Your spoon should be gently rolling from the top of the bowl to the bottom all the while easing in the fruit. Do not stir in a circle like a whirling dervish. You will end up with busted berries and a purple cake that only Willy Wonka would be happy with.

The oven is waiting, let’s get the cake into the pan! Take your prepared bundt pan (you DID flour and grease like I said, right?) and put 1/2 of the topping mixture into the bottom of the pan.

Next put 1/2 of the batter into the bundt pan. Don’t mix or stir. We don’t want any co-mingling of the batter and streusel. Then sprinkle the remaining streusel on top of the batter. Again, do not mix or stir this.

For your final layer, top off the whole thing with the remaining batter. It doesn’t have to completely cover the streusel. We gotta make the oven do a little bit of work too!

Allow the cake to cook for 50 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Cake is done when cake tester (or bamboo skewer) comes out clean. Cool cake for 20-25 minutes on a rack.

Turn cake out onto plate. If it doesn’t immediately release, don’t panic. Just leave it alone and let gravity take over. Because you took the extra step to grease and flour the pan (you did, didn’t you?) it will release and be lovely. So lovely in fact that I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of the uncut cake. The mister was swirling around like a shark at the turtle buffet and he jumped right in and cut a piece!

The best part was, he handed me the plate and said “That’s yours” and proceeded to cut another piece about 4″ wide! I love that man.

The whole thing was lovely AND tasty. What a wonderful way to make use of those gorgeous berries. You do have some additional options here. Once the cake has cooled completely, you could dust with powdered sugar, drizzle with a powdered sugar and milk glaze or just do like I did and go naked. Well…the cake, not me.

Just in case there is enough for seconds, a pat of butter and a turn in the microwave could be just what you need!

Now where did I leave my coffee cup?