Streuseled Blueberry Coffee Cake

 

Iiiiii mean, what could be wrong here?!  Streusel.  Blueberries.  Coffee Cake.  Throw them all together and you've got Streuseled Blueberry Coffee Cake and wow, some happy happy noshers.

It's nearly blueberry season and for sure my cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs blueberry lovers near and far are a-twitter knowing there are deeelish blueberry treats coming down the pike!

No doubt, oh please, absolutely no doubt, I'll be zipping over to Michigan in July for blueberry picking and fresh peaches for Mike's pie and honey and and and....I am excited.

Back when I was a kid whiiich, ya know, was ahem, not so long ago (yeah it was), my parents piled us in the car and took us on road trips around the country during summer vacations.  It was spectacular and we saw nearly the whole forty-eight.  I'm very grateful.

My dad would load the big red metal now vintage (and ours!) Coleman cooler into the trunk and pack up the car, exercising his Marshall Packing Gene to the max no doubt.

My mom would load the cooler with drinks and food and snacks plus there'd be an extra sack of snacks inside the car.  She'd always hook us up with goodies we didn't normally get like Milanos or the cheese circles wrapped in red wax.

What does this have to do with a Streuseled Blueberry Coffee Cake?, you're asking.

A road trip.  The first one I had been on with my parents in I don't even know how long.  Sadly though, it wasn't for merriment.

Last May, Mike's dad, Dick, passed away.  It was rough.  It was hard.  It still is.  Last June, Mike's family held a service to memorialize him and celebrate his life.

Dick was a great man, always had a smile, always had a laugh or good-hearted tease on hand, he was highly skilled on the grill, a killer at cards, and he cared deeply about his family.  He loved and everyone loved him right back.

Finn, on the other hand, is a monster.  An anxious mess.  Hates people, hates dogs, cats, everything except his two parents, his couch, and his spoiled quiet life.  That means we can't board him, no one will stay in our house to watch him, and we can't leave him unsupervised in, say, a vacation rental.

This complicates our lives but he is our forever-dog in his forever-home.  We love him so we make it work. 

Mike grew up in a neighboring state so he traveled home and horrendously, I could not travel with him, be with him, hug and support him, fix a wayward button during such a dreadful time.  Gut-wrenching, right?

My parents wished to attend the service so they very generously offered to drive there and back in a day, a big long day.

Hearkening back to our road trip days, I baked up this Streuseled Blueberry Coffee Cake, packed up a (much smaller) cooler, wrangled up goodies and snacks and drinks because autopilot, I am well-road-trip-trained to do so.

My dad had two (three actually I think, hey no judgments) slices of this coffee cake, my mom had one though she's not a blueberry fan.  They loved it.

Baking this was multi-fold though.  I wanted to make sure Mike had something to eat too before the events of the day as I knew he'd put himself on the back burner.  Upon our arrival, he had a hunk.  I left the pan with him to polish off as the snack needs came.

So while this Streuseled Blueberry Coffee Cake has some memories now attached to it for me, baking it was love, was comfort, energy, giving, and supporting, a big blue crumbly hug, and bonus, it truly is terrific.  Everything that baking is about.

It's perfect for blueberry season.  Or not -- you can use frozen berries with this too.  Keep the berries frozen, don't defrost them.  Or other berries too if you'd like, or a combination of berries!

Start with the streusel.  Merely mash up some butter and work the rest of the ingredients in making lots of lumpy bumpy streusel clumps.  My Streusel Pro pal Lance, and trust me, he is a Streusel Master, says cold butter and use your fingers then chill it at least twenty minutes.

Following the original recipe, I melted the butter but no, don't do that.  Keep it cold.

Keep it clumpy, don't smash the mix into a solid mass, and get the lumps pretty evenly sized.  'Fridge it and keep going.  Edited to update:  actually, smush it into a solid mass, refrigerate it then just before use, bust it up into mostly evenly sized pieces.  Works muuuch better.

The cake is just as simple.

After mixing the dry ingredients with the dry, the wet with the wet, cream up* the butter with the sugars.

Add half of the dry to the creamed sugary butter, all the wet, then the rest of the dry.  So simple.

Stop the mixer before everything is too mixed and gently fold in most of the berries with a non-stick spatula.*

Scoop the batter into an eight inch square baking pan* that you've lined once or twice with parchment paper.*  Overhang the paper so that it acts as a sling to lift the cake out.  You can get fancy and tidy with the paper or smash it in there, works either way. 

If you go for one large paper piece, flip the pan over, form and fold the paper over the outside of the pan, then flip the pan back right, drop the paper in.  Or, heh, smash it in there.  Or, just grease the pan, skip the paper.

Right, so spread the batter around evenly, sprinkle the top with the rest of the blueberries, then evenly across the top, the streusel.  It'll seem like too much, but really, is there ever too much streusel?

My streusel nuggets are not evenly sized, I know.  Learned after the fact.

Bake.  Cool.  Slice.  Enjoy.

Yes, see, I need to work on my streusel skills which is why I contacted the Lance the Master.  So while this isn't perfect, it's still worth the share.  Just follow his tips; I will.

Great for road trips, great for soothing sad souls, great anytime.  I'm sure you'll find this Streuseled Blueberry Coffee Cake a solid keeper.

*The mixers, spatulas, 8" square baking pans, and parchment paper are Amazon affiliate links.  Happy baking, thanks!  Please see the "info" tab for more, well, info.