Blueberry Crumb Cake

By efriend

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 4 Tablespoons melted unsalted butter
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• zest of one lemon
• 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sour cream, room temperature (I used light sour cream)
• 1/4 cup milk, room temperature (I used 1%)
• 2 cups fresh blueberries (mine was heaping)
• 1 Tablespoon all purpose flour
• Confectioner's sugar
• Lemon icing (see notes)

Details

Servings 8
Adapted from themerchantbaker.com

Preparation

Step 1

Butter and mix it with the dry ingredients. Press the mixture firmly in a small bowl and stash it in the fridge while you make the cake.

I melted the butter to mix it with the dry ingredients, and now we’re chilling it to firm the butter back up again. You could skip this step, but this is what helps form chunky crumbs. Just stash it in the fridge while you make the cake. The butter firms up quickly and it will be ready when you are.

For the cake, you want to whip your butter, sugar and lemon zest until fluffy. If your butter is at a nice room temperature, this shouldn’t be a problem since it’s already soft and ready to incorporate some air through beating.

It’s important to add the lemon zest at this stage because beating it with the sugar helps infuse the flavor throughout the batter.

Then, add the eggs. If your batter is fluffy and your eggs are at room temperature, you are golden. They will incorporate easily.

But hey, that’s not going to happen to you because you’re going to make sure everything is at room temperature. Right? Right!

Now let’s talk about sinking fruit. We’re about to add the blueberries, but we don’t want them to sink to the bottom of the cake. This cake batter is fairly thick, so it’s possible they wouldn’t sink.

I decided not to risk it and tossed the blueberries with a spoonful of flour before I added them to the batter. It took less than a minute.

I don’t use this method when I make

. One that I didn’t want to make over if the berries sunk.

Get your crumb mixture out of the fridge because it’s ready for you, just like I told you. You’ll need a fork to break through what has become a solid mass of butter, sugar and yum. I like to break it into big chunks with a fork and then break it up into various sizes as I sprinkle it on top of the cake.

Or….make a lemon icing. Yeah, I didn’t think of that until I was typing the recipe up. I kept looking at that zested lemon and wondering if I should have incorporated the juice into the cake batter. But I think the lemon icing is an even better idea.

I added directions in the recipe notes for the icing. I think it would be lovely to drizzle that over the crumbs. And, it will add another bit of lemon flavor to the cake.

I fell hard for crumb cake this year. I don’t eat a lot of sweets for breakfast, but I will make an exception for Chocolate Chip Crumb Cake and Blueberry Crumb Cake. Oh yeah, and scones and umm….muffins…

Yield:

4 Tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9" round springform pan with cooking spray, or lightly grease bottom and sides. Set aside.

Make the crumb topping. Mix the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt together until fully combined. Add the melted butter and stir until fully incorporated. This will take a minute or two with a spoon, or you can use your hands to work it in more quickly.

Once the mixture is fully combined, pat it down in the bowl with your hands or the back of a spoon so that it is tightly packed in the bowl. Place the bowl in the refrigerator while you mix up the cake batter.

Make the cake. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using a hand held electric mixer or the paddle attachment in a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugar and lemon zest for about 2 minutes until fully combined and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until combined after each addition.

Whisk the milk and sour cream together in a liquid measuring cup. If they're still cool, you can microwave the mixture for 10 seconds to take any chill off. Just don't allow it to get warm at all.

Add the sour cream/milk mixture to the butter mixture and beat until combined, scraping the sides and bottom of bowl as necessary throughout the entire mixing process.

Gradually add the flour mixture and mix until fully combined. Do not over mix at this stage.

Remove crumb mixture from refrigerator and break up into various sized crumbs. Scatter evenly over cake batter.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. I covered my cake with a piece of foil for the last 10-15 minutes or so of baking time to prevent the crumbs from over browning. Take care not to over bake or you'll risk a dry cake.

*Instead of, (or in addition to) the sprinkle of confectioner's sugar on top, you can make a lemon icing to drizzle over the cake. To make the icing, mix 1 cup confectioner's sugar with lemon juice (from the lemon you've already zested from the recipe) and a splash of vanilla extract until desired drizzling consistency. It won't take a lot of juice to make the icing. Start by adding a couple of teaspoons of the juice, and then continue to add until you get the thickness you want. I think a thicker consistency is best so that it doesn't get lost amongst the crumbs.

*I find it takes too long to allow sour cream and milk to come completely to room temperature by themselves. For this recipe, I whisk the two together and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Then, I use the microwave to take the chill off for about 10 seconds. Stir, then check. If the mixture is still cool, I'll give it another 10 seconds or just enough to bring it to room temperature. If it's cold, it will resolidify the butter in the cake batter. If it's warm it will melt the butter. You can just use the microwave to bring the mixture to temperature, but I prefer to take it out of the refrigerator for a bit to give it a head start. See blog post for more tips on speeding up the process of getting your ingredients to room temperature.

*It's not mandatory to toss the berries in flour. I did this step to reduce the risk of the berries sinking, though many claim it's not worth it and you'll get the same results if you skip this step. I don't use the flour method when I make muffins, but was concerned about what would happen in an entire cake. It only takes a few seconds, so I did it. It's your choice.

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