TWD: Blueberry Crumb Cake

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Sihan, of the blog, Befuddlement. I urge you to visit her blog for the recipe, because you won't be disappointed!

I am such a sucker for anything slightly resembling a coffee cake....My 2 sisters and I get this from our Mom, of that I am sure. She was a big fan of coffee treats/coffee cakes. Back in the day it was Viking...then it was Entenmann's..and sometimes a Sara Lee..and other times Mom would whip up her own quick breads--orange, lemon---the almond was my favorite because it reminded me of Stella D'oro breakfast treats (ANOTHER fave of mom's).

These days my sisters and I will let each other know if anyone spots a Sara Lee Butter Streusel Coffee Cake--that was 'THE' coffee cake for the 3 of us--we could polish off an entire cake on a Sunday morning easily!


To this day when my sisters and I gather, we usually make a point to set the meeting time for late morning--I think it's because we all know it means an extra pot of coffee...and treats of some sort!

I wish I had a gathering planned when I made this blueberry crumb cake, because it would fit the bill so perfectly!

I made it a few weeks back upon seeing that fresh blueberries were on sale at my grocery store. Everything came together so easily for the batter--this and the yogurt cake were such simple recipes that taste like they take more effort than they truly do!

I took for granted that I had walnuts in the house--and found that I actually barely had any--only had 1/2 of what the recipe called for--so I used half walnut-half slivered almonds for the topping--came out great!

The only downfall was the top came out baked a bit more well-done than I wanted...I sacrificed the edges and topping to be sure the middle was baked through. It was not burned by any means, but it just meant the pieces closest to an edge were drier than I wanted.



I brought half into work, and Dear Husband and I enjoyed the other half. Everyone seemed to really like this one..

I can't wait to make this summer when I can get out and pick some blueberries locally ...I have a favorite blueberry cobbler recipe--so this will be a nice spin on another blueberry recipe when I end up with more blueberries than one can shake a stick at and am looking for something beyond muffins and cobbler!




It's been starred in Dorie's cookbook for me now...2 weeks in a row, 2 home run recipes!!

TWD:FRENCH YOGURT CAKE (sans marmalade)

This week, on Tuesdays With Dorie--follow Lisa as she goes hunting to 4 stores for lemon marmalade....and a small container of 'plain' yogurt that is not 'Greek'...

OK, so the official name of the recipe this week was French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze ....but I fell short both the 'yogurt' and 'marmalade' ingredients..but thankfully I still came up with a great tasting cake!!

I made this a few weekends ago when we found ourselves with a cold rainy day here in the Northeast...



I decided it was an opportune afternoon for a cozy treat. I trekked out and basically hit any epicure/grocery store I could find and sought out the 'lemon marmalade'....guess what folks, it's just not in these here 'parts.' I found lemon curd, orange marmalade-but never marmalade of the lemon persuasion. If that wasn't bad enough, the only plain yogurt I could find was in those huge tubs...no store had just 'plain' yogurt in the handy single-serving portions...there was every other flavor you can think of (and some I would rather not think of)....I saw Greek yogurt in those smaller size containers, but knowing that Dorie ALSO has a version of this that uses Greek yogurt made me think it is not the same flavor as 'plain.' I did not want to buy the big tub o' plain, because I knew I'd have little use for the majority of it as the recipe did not call for all that much (and I do have a habit of buying a special ingredient for a recipe that I only use a small amount of, leaving me with a lot of waste/leftover that I tell myself I will use, but never do...) So after about 4 stores I made 2 executive decisions:

1- use a lemon juice+confectioners sugar glaze recipe Dorie mentions in the 'Bundt Cake' section of the book (I think it was under the Banana Bundt Cake recipe, just fyi)

2- don't go buying the huge container of plain yogurt--go with my favorite Stonyfield Organic Vanilla yogurt....vanilla -vs- plain isn't all that 'off'

The cake came together rather easily....QUESTION: I had some slivered almonds that I ground in the processor as the recipe calls for, but the almonds still had the 'brown' outer to it--was that right? I'm thinking I should have used the almonds that have all that outer layer off of it...because my batter looked rather freckled due to that...but hey, if you ask anyone (except Jan Brady) freckles aren't all THAT bad....they add character.


So the cake came TOGETHER easily...but did not want to lift out of the bread pan easily....I was so disappointed....I think I may have tried to get it out of the pan too soon....guess I was too excited. So some chunks from it were left over in the bottom...I tried to scrape it out and 'patch' it back to the underside of the cake....thankfully this was not going to be served to any guests!


BUT it did mean I was able to 'test' the cake sooner than I thought...I grabbed some from the remnants in the pan and was DELIGHTED at the taste!!

I whipped up the lemon juice-confectioners sugar glaze for the top and it settled in nicely to the texture of the cake...





This will MOST DEFINITELY be a go-to recipe for me (I will make at Easter no doubt!) I can't say I taste 'vanilla' all that much, so don't think my substitution of vanilla yogurt for plain made a bad influence....

The recipe this week was chosen by Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction (one of my favorite blog names in our Tuesdays With Dorie community!) Visit her blog for fantastic creations, and for this recipe!!

Once again, thanks to the organizers of the this blog--and Dorie of course--I whipped up something I probably would not have found if it was not for this cookbook, and it has fast become a favorite recipe....funny, this and French Pear Tart stand out in my mind lately for my favorites...what is it with the "French" named recipes?? Je nais se quoi! (did I spell that right?)

Hope everyone enjoyed this cake as much as we did...I can't wait to make it again!!

PS: Happy St. Patrick's Day! I made the best Irish Soda Bread this weekend!! I will post photos/recipe later this week!