Blueberry Crumb Cake

What can I say about this? Wonderful! All you need to go with this cake is a hot cup of coffee. This is from Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking From my home to yours". There are so many great things to make in this book that I have a hard time deciding on what to bake. This cake is light and buttery, with the sweetness of the berries, with a topping that is crunchy, nutty and buttery...how can you go wrong with that?!

Blueberry Crumb Cake

For the crumbs:

5 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp

1/4 Cup sugar

1/3 Cup (packed)light brown sugar

1/3 Cup all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 Cup chopped walnuts (I didn't have walnuts, so I used pecans instead)

For the cake:

2 Cups blueberries (preferably fresh, or frozen, not thawed)

2 Cups plus 2 tsp all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

2/3 Cup sugar

Grated zest of 1/2 lemon or 1/4 orange

3/4 stick (6 Tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temp

2 eggs. at room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 Cup buttermilk

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square pan and put it on a baking sheet.

To make the crumbs: Put all the ingredients except the nuts in a food processor and pulse just until the mixture forms clumps and curds and holds together when pressed. Scrape the topping into a bowl, stir in the nuts and press a piece of plastic against the surface. Refrigerate until needed.

To make the cake: Using your fingertips, toss the blueberries and 2 tsp of the flour together in a small bowl just to coat the berries; set aside. Whisk together the remaining 2 cups flour, the baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Working in the bowl of a stand mixer or in another large bowl, rub the sugar and zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Add the butter and, with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat the sugar with the butter at medium speed until light, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one by one, beating for about 1 minutes after each addition, then beat in the vanilla extract. Don't be concerned if the batter looks curdled-it will soon smooth out. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, the flour in 3 parts and the buttermilk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients). You will have a thick, creamy batter. With a rubber spatula, gently stir in the berries.

Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and smooth the top gently with the spatula. Pull the crumb mix from the refrigerator and, with your fingertips, break it into pieces. Scatter the crumbs over the batter, pressing them down slightly.

Bake for 55-65 minutes, or until the crumbs are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

*My cake was done in about 45 minutes, so you may want to check on yours after it has baked for about 35-40 minutes, just in case your oven decides to bake a little hotter than usual. :)

I hope that you enjoy this cake as well as I did!