My Weekend Baking Frenzy

On the weekends, I practice my baking skills at my boyfriend's place because the house I rent my room from doesn't have a very functional kitchen. Anything I bake that turns out "edible", I have my boyfriend take it to work to share with his coworkers. This recipe I tried was a huge hit: Ina Garten's blueberry crumb cake. Forget the store bought varieties when you can make your own! Bake these for a sunday brunch or just have some with a cup a joe!

Blueberry Crumb Cake

By Ina Garten

For the Streusel 

• 1/4 C. sugar
• 1/3 C. light brown sugar
• 1tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 1 1/3 C. flour

For the Cake

• 6 T butter, room temp
• 3/4 C. sugar
• 2 xtra large eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 2/3 C. sour cream
• 1 1/4 C. flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 C blueberries
• Some powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9 inch round cake pan.

For Streusel: Combine sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in melted butter, then flour. Mix to combine and set aside.

For the cake: Cream butter and sugar for 4-5 min until smooth and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Then add vanilla, zest, sour cream. Add flour just to combine. Fold in the blueberries. It's very important not to over mix the batter, or else you'll end up with a tough cake.

Pour the batter into the pan, spread evenly with a spatula. Crumble the topping evenly over the batter and bake for 40- 50 min, or until the cake tester comes out clean. Cool completely and dust with powdered sugar.

I used frozen blueberries for my cake. I made sure to toss the blueberries with about one tablespoon of flour before I added into the batter. This prevents the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the batter and it also absorbs any extra juice. Usually when you use frozen berries in a recipe, you have to adjust the cooking time by increasing it to 10 minutes. Mine was done by 50 minutes.

Enjoy and happy baking!