Description
A deliciously moist and tender blueberry coffee cake recipe featuring 3 cups of fresh blueberries and a buttery brown sugar streusel topping. Perfect for entertaining and can be made ahead.
Ingredients
For the Cake Batter:
- 1½ cups granulated sugar (white sugar only don’t get fancy)
- ½ cup shortening (sounds gross but works better than butter trust me)
- 2 large eggs (room temp works better but whatever)
- 1 cup milk (any kind you got)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (not the fake stuff)
- 4 cups all-purpose flour (just regular flour nothing special)
- 4 teaspoons baking powder (I know it looks like too much)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 cups blueberries (fresh frozen doesn’t matter)
For the Streusel Topping:
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar (pack it down hard)
- ⅔ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup butter (cold from fridge)
Instructions
Turn oven to 375°F and let it heat up while you mess around with the batter. Grease that pan real good with butter or spray or you’ll be scraping cake bits off later cursing yourself.
Beat sugar and shortening together till it looks fluffy and light. Takes about five minutes with the mixer and your arm will get tired if you’re doing it by hand. Don’t rush this part even though it’s boring as hell.
Add eggs one at a time beating after each one. My mom always did this and I never knew why till I tried dumping them all in at once and the batter looked lumpy and gross. Then add milk and vanilla beat till smooth.
Mix flour baking powder salt in different bowl. Whisk it good so there’s no lumps of baking powder hiding in there because that tastes nasty if you bite into it.
Add flour stuff to wet stuff and stir just till combined. Don’t beat the crap out of it or use the mixer. Just stir till you can’t see white flour streaks anymore then stop. Batter’s gonna be thick and that’s right.
Trick I learned from my aunt – shake the berries around in some flour before you add them. Sounds dumb but keeps them from all sinking to bottom. Fold them in gentle so you don’t squish them all.
Dump batter in pan and spread it around best you can. It’s thick so takes some work. Don’t worry about making it perfect the topping covers everything anyway.
Mix brown sugar and flour in bowl. Add cold butter and mash it up with forks or pastry thing till it looks like crumbs. Should stick together when you squeeze it but still be crumbly. Sprinkle all over the batter.
Stick in oven 35-45 minutes. Start checking at 35 with toothpick in middle. Should come out with few wet crumbs not soaking wet batter but not totally clean either. Top should be golden brown and smell incredible.
Don’t overbake this sucker. Rather have it slightly underdone than dry and gross.
Let it cool at least 15 minutes before cutting or it falls apart and makes a mess. I know it smells amazing and you want to eat it right now but patience pays off here.
Notes
Frozen berries work fine don’t thaw them first or everything turns purple and looks gross.
Middle rack only. Top rack burns the topping bottom rack makes soggy bottom.
Few crumbs on toothpick means done. Wet batter means keep going. Totally clean means you went too far.
Don’t open oven door first 30 minutes or cake might sink in middle.
No shortening? Use butter but won’t stay as soft as long.
Make double batch of streusel and freeze half for next time.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 35-45 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American