Blueberry Buckle

I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday weekend!  We pretty much stuck to home, barbequed some babyback ribs one day, salsa marinated pork chops another day, Barbacoa another day….yummmm.  And we didn’t have to leave our front porch to watch fireworks.  Two of our neighbors about 1/4 mile away both had a ton of good fireworks.  They both went on for over 20 minutes.   And no crowd to fight driving home from anywhere.  🙂

I would have liked to have a bonfire with all the kids, but that just didn’t work out this year.  Hopefully before Summer is over….

Sooooo, can you get much better than this on a Sunday morning?  Well, maybe, but I’ll get to those yeast waffles later.  In the meantime, warm coffee cake with a hint of lemon, packed with blueberries, and a crunchy streusel crumble on top.  My family will eat this anywhere, anytime, and fight over it.

I’m pretty sure I have mentioned that my husband is a fan of coffee cakes.  Mainly, I think, because he can pick them up and eat them without utensils when he’s in a hurry or working.  Anyway, I typically keep at least two different ones in the freezer for him to take in his lunch, and realized the other day that they were all gone.  Ooops.  I usually replace at least one of them before the second one is gone.  Well, we needed a  Sunday breakfast anyway!  And this one is hard to beat.

I first made this many years ago and it was a hit then.  Somewhere along the line, I lost the recipe.  Eventually I found another – similar but not as good.  I started with that one and tweaked it a number of times before I felt that I had what we wanted.  The lemon was a later addition and, if you don’t care for it, simply leave out the lemon zest.  You won’t hurt my feelings.  I swear.

There are a few things about making this that I want to note.  I use a lot of blueberries.  Typically, this size recipe would use about 2 cups.  We like 4 cups.  When the berries are fresh, no problem.  But when you are using frozen berries, look out.  Here are my observations from making this many times over.

1.  When using frozen berries, DON”T try to stir them into the batter.  The batter will start to freeze into one big clump.  And then you have a problem.  What I typically do is, in the greased pan, spread a thin layer of the batter, maybe 1/4 of it.  Sprinkle about 1/4 of the berries around.  Spread another 1/4 of the batter, sprinkle with another 1/4 of the berries, pressing the berries down.  Repeat until batter and berries are used up, pressing the berries down slightly each time.

2.  I do NOT recommend using a glass pan for this, especially if using frozen berries.  It takes too long to bake and the corners tend to get too dry.

3.  When using frozen berries, the bake time runs JUST under 2 hours.  Do NOT count on the “touch/springback” test to check for doneness here.  Use the toothpick, although it may take several before you don’t end up just hitting a blueberry.  Trust me – The one time I wasn’t thinking and went with the touch test – it wasn’t done.  And that was the day I was taking it somewhere.  Uggg.

If that all makes it sound complicated, it really isn’t.  Just be patient if your using all four cups of frozen blueberries….