Blueberry Coffee Cake

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Safeway has blueberries on sale!!  $3.99 for 18 oz.!  At $3.55 per pound, that is well over my usual $2 per pound spending limit for produce.  But that is a REALLY good price for blueberries.  And Robbie REALLY loves them!  So I splurged and bought two pounds.  If you want to take advantage of this deal, it is good through tomorrow (Tuesday, January 17).

Since blueberries are expensive and I rarely buy them, we treat them like gold.  Rather than using them as an eating fruit, I almost exclusively use them as a treat fruit.  When I do buy them, I freeze them so they will keep a long time.  In fact, I’m still using some I froze last summer.

Freezing blueberries is easy.  Simply spread them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.  Place the sheet in the freezer.  When the berries are completely frozen (about an hour should do it), transfer them to a zip-top bag and return them to the freezer.

Using frozen blueberries is actually better than fresh blueberries when you are mixing them into baked goods.  Fresh berries are easily crushed in the mixing process, resulting in blue or purple cakes, scones, or muffins.

One of Robbie’s favorite blueberry desserts is blueberry crisp.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a recipe for that because I don’t usually measure.  I’ll have to work on that one for the future.  But I do have a great healthy version of blueberry coffee cake.  I found the recipe in our church cookbook.  It was submitted by Hyeran.

While I would definitely prefer an all-white flour, loads of sugar coffee cake, my waistline definitely does not.  This recipe replaces half the white flour with whole wheat flour and replaces some of the sugar with honey.

It’s almost impossible to resist cutting into this coffee cake right out of the oven—it just smells so good!!  But I’ve found that I actually prefer it the next day.

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Topping

½ c. sugar

½ c. flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

¼ c. butter, melted

Cake

1 c. all-purpose flour

1 c. whole wheat flour

¼ tsp. salt

2½ tsp. baking powder

1 egg

½ c. vegetable oil

½ c. honey

½ c. water

2 c. frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350°.  In small bowl, mix together sugar, flour, and cinnamon for topping.  Stir in melted butter; set aside.

In medium bowl, stir together flours, salt, and baking powder; set aside.

In large bowl, whisk egg to break apart.  Add vegetable oil, honey, and water; whisk together.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, stirring just until moistened or even when there are still a few dry spots.  DO NOT OVER MIX!!  Batter will be lumpy!

Fold in blueberries.  Scrape into 9X9-inch pan with minimal manipulation.  Crumble topping over top.

Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

UPDATE!!  Raley's (Nob Hill) has 18 oz. containers of blueberries for $3.99 1/18-1/24!!