Today, I tried another recipe from Rose Levy Berenbaum’s The Baking Bible.
Remember when I said in my previous blog that the cake I made was one of the first recipes to appear in the book, so it must have been easier? Well this recipe I made today is the first, and unlike the last cake I made, it was actually easy!
The journey started out with a trip to Farmer Joe’s for some fresh blueberries. Blueberries are really expensive in the area I live, so I used a mix of fresh and frozen blueberries. That’s why you see the different ones in this pan here.
The first part of the recipe is to make the blueberry filling. In the pie plate itself, you actually stir together lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, sea salt, and blueberries.
Next, you make the batter topping. (A Rose Levy Berenbaum recipe with only two parts to it? No meringue on top? No crumb topping? No chocolate glaze? I don’t believe it!) I love her recipes, but they’re more extra than a pageant queen, oof.
The batter topping included two large egg yolks at room temperature, sour cream, vanilla extract, cake or all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and of course, butter.
By the way, am I crazy, or are egg yolks easier to separate when they’re cold? I had two eggs at room temperature, but upon a messy break, they slid through my fingers and mixed together.
You pretty much just drop the batter on top, and Rose said to leave a one inch border between the batter and the sides of the plate and a 2-inch space in the middle. I decided to follow her instruction, but I thought they were for aesthetics only.
In the end, I’m really glad I did that, or the batter would have gone over. Rose’s book isn’t really the most user-friendly in that she doesn’t hold your hand or tell you why you should or shouldn’t do things. That’s one of my peeves about the book, as an impatient baker. Once baked, the cake looked beautiful!
Digging into it, you get the most delicious fluffy cake, with the sweet blueberries underneath. I looked up other blueberry buckle recipes, and surprisingly, Rose’s recipe is more simpler in that it seems to go on top and not mesh with the batter as much. Or perhaps it had meant to permeate and fill in the gaps more but that didn’t happen. Either way, it looked delicious and me and my partner consumed it with much gusto.
Next stop, Blueberry Crumb Party Coffee Cake!
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