Blueberry Crumb Cake for My Sweetheart

Thursday was my wedding anniversary and I planned on getting up early to make a crumb cake for Mike as a surprise. Our normal breakfast is usually a smoothie and a piece of wheat toast. I never make anything special for breakfast unless it is Sunday. So I baked this at 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning.

This recipe is straight out of the Martha Stewart playbook, with a couple of tweaks. The cake batter has to be spread out in the pan (it will be a very thin layer). Another thing I like about this is you don't have to use your Kitchen Aid, you can simply hand mix these in bowls. Very easy to put together.

It takes a little while to bake. I thought it would only take 30 minutes but it actually took closer to 45. Be sure to check it with a toothpick in the last 5-10 minutes of baking and adjust accordingly. If you are lucky enough to live near a Trader Joe's, the tiny frozen wild Maine blueberries they sell are terrific in this.

Blueberry Crumb Cake

2 T Canola oil
4 C all purpose flour
1/2 C sugar
2.5 t baking power
1/2 t salt
1 egg
1/2 C milk
2 t vanilla
1 C. light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 t cinnamon
1 C unsalted butter, melted
1 C fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 325. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with nonstick spray and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups of flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In a large mixing cup, mix together the egg, milk, canola oil and vanilla.

Whisk the wet mixture into the flour mixture, beat until well combined. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. The batter will be very thick and gluey, spread thinly with a rubber spatula.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining 2 1/2 cups flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Pour the melted butter into the mixture and stir until large crumbs form.

Sprinkle the blueberries over the cake batter. Distribute the crumb topping over the top of the blueberries. There will be alot of crumb topping (this is OK, better than OK actually!)

Bake at 325 for about 40 minutes, check for doneness with a toothpick.

Makes 12 servings.

Notes:

This freezes well. I usually divide the cooled crumb cake into two sections and freeze half of it for later use.
You could add chopped walnuts or pecans to the crumb mixture.
Instead of blueberries, you could finely dice a small green apple and sprinkle the apple bits over the batter for an apple crumb cake.