I knew Alex, especially, would love this one. My son loves anything with blueberries. So this one was definitely a winner before I even read the rest of the ingredients.
Sihan of Befuddlement selected this week's recipe, and what a lovely choice. Thanks, Sihan!
I actually made this over the course of two days. I made the topping and combined the dry ingredients Saturday night and put the whole thing together early (like, five-thirtyish) the next morning. I am pretty sure I'll make this one again, especially late this summer when the blueberries are ripe.
First up, the topping, which, for me, is often the best part.
I assembled all my ingredients - flour, butter, brown sugar, chopped walnuts, white sugar, and salt - and then combined everything but the nuts in the food processor.
And then I added the nuts, after dumping this mixture into another bowl. Yum.
I covered that and stuck it the fridge. Then I whisked together the dry ingredients...
Actually, no, Julia whisked them.
Then I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and that was it til the next morning.
Like I said, I finished this up EARLY on Sunday morning. Bill took the kids skiing - in North Conway - for the day, so they left a little before five that morning. (Julia even has her own (second-hand) skiis and the most adorable little ski boots. And the boots are adjustable! She'll be able to get about three years' use out of them! Pretty cool, huh? We're hoping to do the same thing with Alex in the fall. We'd have done it this year, but the place we're buying from didn't have any more skiis in Alex's size (at least none in time for this trip), so we just rented Sunday and we'll get him outfitted in October.)
Woah, that was a bit of a tangent.
Anyway, my parents were going to come up for coffee and a visit later that morning, so I figured I'd whip this cake up in time for them.
Also, I didn't want to just make one 8" square cake. Instead, I broke out my mini springform pans and made 6 adorable little round cakes instead.
The process photos didn't come out that great - pre-dawn lighting isn't all that great - but here are a few of them, just because.
They baked for about 40 minutes, and smelled wonderful in the process.
Here they are fresh from the oven...
Want a closer look?
After they cooled a bit, I loosened the rings and let them cool some more. Then I removed the rings and the bases of the pans and let them finish cooling before plating them up.
I ran one over to our friends across the street right away, and kept the rest handy for picture-taking and eating.
My parents and I shared one little cake, and I gave them another to take home. At the moment, we have one left. Alex has eaten most of the other two.
Big raves all around - from my friend across the street, my parents, Bill and the kids, and - oh, yeah - me. Soft, moist, easy to make and delicious. Like I said, I'll be making this again, especially during blueberry season. I was also thinking this would work well as a batch of muffins.
Many thanks so Sihan for choosing the Blueberry Crumb Cake for this week - you can find the recipe on her site or in the pages of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. (Pages 192-193 to be exact.) You can also go read what the rest of the TWD crew had to say about this one. The blogroll is LOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG, so pace yourself!
