I am a terrible blogger. I discovered how terrible I was recently when I got myself onto Google+ and found out there was so much more to food blogging than I ever knew. Planning a blog post? You mean people plan blog posts and not just post whenever they fancy. Ah… but the knowledge is good. Now to start becoming more organised.
You see, I seldom plan what to bake/cook these days. It is usually a case of “oh the kid slept early today, now what can I bake?” or “I think these blueberries have been lying around the fridge for a little too long, I should do something about them”. So it happens when those two statements fall on the same night, I bake blueberry crumb cake.
Now read crumb cake and you know that it has a streusel topping. I love streusel topping though it is probably way too sweet for my good and so I usually compensate by reducing the sugar in the cake. This time round, I attempted to ease my conscience by substituting half of the flour with whole wheat flour.
I brought this to work and colleagues loved it. Serve it with coffee or tea if you like. I was happy to eat it on its own.
- 2.5 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ¼ cup caster sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- ⅓ cup whole wheat flour
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- 2 cups fresh blueberries
- 1 cup plus 2 tsp plain flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 3 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup milk
- Preheat oven to 175°C and place a rack in the centre of the oven.
- Spray an 8-inch square baking pan with non-stick spray.
- Using a fork, combine the ingredients for the streusel topping (except the walnuts) together.
- Stir in the walnuts and keep covered with cling wrap and refrigerated until required.
- Toss blueberries with 2 teaspoons of plain flour.
- In a large bowl, sift remaining plain flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Whisk to combine.
- In the bowl of a standing mixer, rub sugar and zest together with fingertips until sugar is moist and fragrant.
- With the paddle attachment, cream sugar with butter at medium speed till light.
- Add eggs one by one, beating for about a minute after each addition.
- Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and add in the flour mixture and milk alternately, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
- The batter will be thick. Stir in the blueberries with a rubber spatula.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan and smoothen out the top.
- Break refrigerated streusel topping into pieces and scatter over the top of the cake.
- Bake for about 60 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
- Transfer cake to a rack to cool.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
This post is shared at Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm and Simple Living and Eating and Freedom Fridays.
