Tuesdays With Dorie: Blueberry Crumb Cake

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie selection, via Sihan of Befuddlement, gave us an opportunity to try out Dorie's take on a classic: Blueberry Crumb Cake.


Because Baking: From My Home to Yours is such a massive tome, it's been my hope that enough of the recipes will be successful that the cookbook can be my go-to resource when I'm looking for a classic recipe. Sometimes the book falls flat of my expectations - I still need to use a different recipe for Iles Flottantes, for example. And other times, Dorie's versions of classics are exactly what I hoped for. In the future, when I want to make sugar cookies, I'll be using Dorie's recipe.

So when Blueberry Crumb Cake was chosen, I was looking forward to seeing which category the recipe would fall under: new go-to recipe, or disappointment -- is that too harsh?

Now, first of all, because I live on my own and cake doesn't tend to keep very well, I tend to shy away from cake recipes. Generally if a cake is chosen for Tuesdays With Dorie, I'm skipping that week. This is bound to change in September when my internship ends and I finally, happily, move back to my university home and the hungry boyfriend and roommates that it contains. For now, I figured that Blueberry Crumb Cake Muffins are decidedly easier to scale down, so that was the route I took. I ended up halving the recipe, eating some, sharing some, and freezing the rest.

The batter was perfectly spiced with cinnamon and fresh nutmeg. Yum. I love a well-spiced batter. Fresh lemon zest was also mixed in, which added a brightness to the flavour.


As I spooned the batter into the muffin cups, I was a bit concerned. It really wasn't like a typical thin batter - it was like a thick paste. This is generally not a good sign when it comes to cake, although Dorie did mention that this batter would be thick. Luckily, my concerns were unfounded.


I decided to forgo the nuts in the crumb topping because I really, really don't like nuts in baked goods. I read that a lot of other bakers had issues with the crumb topping turning into a melted, buttery mess, but I somehow managed to escape this fate.


I baked the muffins for a bit less than half of the time suggested for the full cake and was impressed with the final result: a spicy, lemony blueberry-flecked batter and a light, crunchy crumb topping.

Definitely a go-to recipe. For a copy of the recipe, visit Sihan. Thanks for stopping by! See you next week when I'll be baking Coconut Butter Thins with lime and coriander.