What I Threw into the Blueberry Coffee Cake Batter

Cake batter

(shamelessly, but utterly scrumptiously, stolen from the Joy of Baking)

  • 1 cup (130 grams) all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup (56 grams) (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup (80 ml) milkI used buttermilk, love the sourish tang
  • 2 cups fresh blueberries…I try to stay away from frozen if I can. But most recipes suggested using either kind, fresh or  frozen. I used only 1/2 a cup of berries for the batter, and reserved the remaining half for the topping
  • 2 tbsp of cream cheese, just because I had some left-over non-fat cream cheese that I wanted to use up, and because the idea of creamcheese was lingering in my subconscious after reading a blueberry cream cheese coffee cake recipe on http://www.blueberry-recipe.com/blueberry-cream-cheese-coffee-cake.html
  • ½ teaspoon nutmeg (inspired by ifoodtv’s rendition of this cake)

 

Topping

(sprinkled over  from CeeCee’s site, Within the Kitchen…though I didn’t  follow exact proportions. I left my tastebuds be my guide!)

  • The remaining 1/2 cup of blueberries from above
  • ¼ cup white sugar
  • 1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
  • Tiny amount of butter, just so you can use it to wipe up the remaining sugar  in the bowl and drop little buttery sugar granules on the bed of blueberries up top
  • Fine shreds of orange rind

 

Preheating

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Farenheit, or 177 degrees Celsius.

Creaming and Blending

I followed the mixing directions on the Joy of Baking site almost to the T.

  • Whip up the butter with an electric mixer, then add in the sugar and cream them together until light and fluffy.
  • Beat in an egg and vanilla essence  into the butter and sugar mixture
  • Add in the flour (in which you should have sprinkled the nutmeg) and buttermilk –  alternating the two in parts until everything in thoroughly combined.
  • Toss in some cream cheese, blend up the mixture a bit more until the re are no obnoxious cream cheese lumps floating about the batter.
  • Finally, fold in the  blueberries

 

Baking

  • Pour the batter into a greased baking dish, smoothing out the top surface with a spatula so that you have a flat bed for the fresh berries to follow
  • For the topping, roll the remaining blueberries in sugar and cinnamon, and then layer them up on the top of the batter. Reserve some of the sugar and cinnamon powder in the bowl, fold in a tablespoon of butter–more or less if you like!- and sprinkle those clumps on top.
  • Once in the oven, the cake is supposed to take anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes to bake as per Joy of Baking. (In my case, it took somewhere around 75 to 85 minutes to bake the entire cake through. It was probably far denser than what the recipe author on Joy of Baking intended it to be.)

Garnishing and Serving

  • I actually enjoyed the cake when it was warm and the now pureed blueberries were still hot and bubbly.
  • Right before serving, (artistically) sprinkle a few orange rind shreds on the top – don’t go crazy here, unless you’re sure that everyone who’s going to be tucking into this cake loves the bitter bite of zest!

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