SECRET RECIPE CLUB: BUTTERMILK-BLUEBERRY BREAKFAST CAKE

Posted in Breakfast & Brunch, Desserts, Sweets, Secret Recipe Club by

This semester is shaping up as one of the busiest for us. I even flirted with the idea of sitting out of the Secret Recipe Club for a month, but I would be miserable watching everyone else posting their tasty recipes and not joining the party. No, not skipping it. My approach then is to jump on the assignment pretty much the day I get the email, on a rapid-fire stalking mode.  The blog I got this month was “Making Miracles“, hosted by Rebekah. I urge you to read her About page, she has lived in many places in the US, including Alaska, but also spent a little over two  years in Senegal back in 1995. A fascinating experience, even if at times not easy. If the subject of surrogacy interests you, she has a lot of experience with it as a surrogate mom herself, and also from helping families reach their dream of having a baby. That’s what the title of her blog, “Making Miracles” is all about.

I decided to go back to sweets for this month’s assignment, and had blueberries on my mind.  Two recipes were begging to be featured, her Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins, and her Buttermilk-Blueberry Breakfast Cake.  The husband spoke. Breakfast cake won. So here it is!

BlueberryCoffeeCake

BUTTERMILK-BLUEBERRY BREAKFAST CAKE
(from Rebekah’s Making Miracles)

½ cup butter, room temperature
2 tsp lemon zest
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar, separated
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour, separated
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups blueberries
½ cup buttermilk

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, lemon zest, and 3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon of the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.

Meanwhile, toss the blueberries with ¼ cup of flour. In a separate bowl whisk together the remaining 1 + 3/4 cup of flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the batter a little at a time, alternating with the buttermilk. Remove excess flour from the blueberries, then fold the blueberries gently into the batter. Batter will be thick.

Grease a 9-inch square baking pan with non-stick spray. Spread batter into pan. Sprinkle batter with remaining tablespoon of sugar. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Check with a toothpick to make sure is cooked through. If necessary, return pan to oven for as long as 10 more minutes.   Let cool at for 10-15 minutes before serving.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

batter-side

Did I mention we’ve been overly busy these days?  At the risk of boring you to death with trivia about growing bacteria, I will share some of the sordid details. For some experiments, we need to start cultures growing around 11pm, and then take care of them again before 5:30am. Usually Phil goes late at night, and I play the early bird.  It’s not that bad, these late night and early morning visits to the lab are short, we prepare everything beforehand to make it easier. I can quickly drive back home, swallow a much-needed cappuccino, take a shower and we go back to work on our regular schedule. Soooo, back to food.  I decided to bake this breakfast cake in of those hectic mornings and take to the department still warm from the oven.

Knowing I would be sleepy and prone to making mistakes, I lined up all ingredients the night before (the blueberries slept in the fridge, together with the buttermilk). Mis-en-place, mes amis. Mis-en-place.

ingredients

Before I left for the lab, I turned the oven on.  Arriving back, Phil had my cappuccino ready, all I had to do was drink the batter, mix the cappuccino… ooops, I guess it was the other way around… What matters is that our department got a freshly baked blueberry cake. Mission accomplished!

pieces

Lots of blueberries make this cake moist and quite crumbly. Make sure to bake it long enough so that pieces will be easy to cut.

Rebekah, I hope you are having a wonderful Reveal Day, I loved cooking from your site!

For all my readers, have fun checking out what the other members of my group prepared for today’s Reveal Day by clicking on the blue frog at the end of my post.

ONE YEAR AGO: Silky Cauliflower Puree with Almond Milk


FOUR YEARS AGO: Popeye-Pleasing Salad 

FIVE YEARS AGO: Summer’s Finale

 

67 thoughts on “SECRET RECIPE CLUB: BUTTERMILK-BLUEBERRY BREAKFAST CAKE”

  2. Surprise, I had your blog as my assignment this month! I made your Quinoa with Cider-Glazed Carrots and LOVED it, I couldn’t believe how tasty it was. Thank you for an amazing recipe I will be making again and again Sally. Now for the recipe YOU made. I’m funny about blueberries, I don’t like them by themselves, but put them in pancakes or a smoothie, and I cant get enough. It looks like your cake came out moist, a big plus in my book. Happy reveal day, and I hope your able to get some rest soon!

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    • That was so nice to learn you got my blog! loved it~ Feeling a little tired this evening still, but I am sure tomorrow I’ll be better (let’s not take in account that tomorrow will be one of these 5am days… 😉

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  7. Thank you for the beautiful feature today and I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as we did… Now I think I need to go home and make this one again, I just stashed some fresh blueberries in the freezer, and think this recipe has its name written all over them. 🙂 Have a FANTASTIC reveal day, and thank you for sharing your crazy busy life with us too, and still making time for SRC! 🙂

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    • Thanks for stopping by! Glad you liked the recipe I picked… it was a huge hit! we do have a ton of blueberries in the freezer now, my hubby makes smoothies for his lunch a few times each week, but I might re-visit this recipe soon. Gotta keep the department happy, don’t you think? 😉

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  8. Heehee.. we were up at 6:00 this morning and as I was reading your mis en place my daughter said “oh my gosh I think I put apple juice in my coffee!” yup.. mornings just get better and better around here:D I always love your SRC posts.. and can see why you chose this one. Cake for breakfast?? I’m in!! xx

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  14. Your department is so lucky! You prepare such wonderful treats for them. This one is no exception – delicious! Your days/mornings are making me sleepy just thinking about them. My goodness. I hope the experiments are going well!

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    • we are having a pretty nice phase as far as experiments go – and when these phases start, we just dive in and try to do as many experiments as possible – “strike while the iron is hot” (this is an expression that fits to a T, as we work with radioactive iron, and it decays with time, so for us this expression is taken literally… 😉

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  24. WOW! Sally, what a FABULOUS recipe for SRC and such amazing ingredients too, LOVE the combo of buttermilk and blueberries and what a perfectly tasty breakfast cake! Karen

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  26. You’re one busy gal my friend and you sure know how to multitask…I’m getting tired just hearing about your morning routine.
    Oh, that breakfast looks amazing, buttermilk and blueberries is a marriage made in heaven!

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    • Oh, that comment made my day! Lovely! thanks so much for letting me know – I sometimes get emails YEARS after a post is published, of people saying how much they love this or that recipe, but it is rare that someone would try it right away and give me a feedback….

      THANK YOU!!!!!

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  31. This is what every busy week needs! I’ll need a whole pan to survive these paper writing days. We just got our reviews back and I want to pull out my hair.

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  34. Making this now for breakfast…salt amount seemed too high for this amount so decreased by 1/4 tsp; tasting the batter, seemed like a good choice…it was salty-tasting; used frozen blueberries we picked last summer; thatsalotta blueberries! hopeful it’s going to be yummy! [later]: texture, of course, is great; not too many blueberries, either; my guess on the salt was good..could tell it was a bit more “salty” in taste, for me, could use a bit more sugar (I don’t like very sweet breakfast items either), crumb/crust great! for those who use frozen berries which makes the batter real stiff, don’t worry..it smooths out; should be even better later or tomorrow morning (if it lasts that long!)…we ate it about 15 minutes out of the oven. Thank you for hosting this recipe and showing us a good thing for us in a “blueberry ridden State”!

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    • Thanks for the feedback! Great that you adjusted the salt to your liking – I’ve never tasted the batter, but now it seems to me a clever way to go if you are making a recipe for the first time and not quite sure about the proportions of ingredients, particularly salt sugar and spices! Glad you enjoyed the recipe!

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  35. Your husband is a good taste tester – this is a winner – best recipe for this breakfast cake! I did substitute half oat flour because I ran out of regular flour – might always do this!

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