March 24, 2009

Blueberry Crumb Cake

It’s 3a.m. and I need to be up at 6 so I’ll keep this shorter than usual 🙂 Coffee cake is not a fave of mine, so this wasn’t a great hit for me. Everyone else loved it though and that mattered more to me 🙂 To be fair, it -is- extremely light and delicate, and the blueberries are not overwhelming in either flavour or textural contrast. If anything, that is probably where my disappointment lay. I love blueberries intensely, and there just wasn’t enough blueberry flavour. I don’t know if this is because I used frozen blueberries instead of fresh so the next time around (cos I will make it again) I will bite the financial bullet and spring for fresh to see if it does make a difference.

Some seem to have had problems with their crumb toppings. I’ve found crumb toppings work best when the mixture is kept rock cold until the very last minute. Then as soon as it has been dispersed on top of the dough, pop it in the oven. Hope that helps! 🙂 Next time around some other things I’ll do is put a greased parchment sheet at the base of the cake, and leave it to cool a little longer in the pan, as the bottom can get rather unstable depending on how many ‘berries’ sank to the bottom and in what concentration.

In the end I’ll give this recipe a B. It comes together quickly, is relatively fool-proof and seems to be a crowd pleaser. I would definitely pair it with a strong coffee or tea (as is the intention), to perk up the mildness in flavour.