My Beautiful Blueberry Buckle

Yes,  here I am, back again. It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I have only myself to blame. It’s easy to stop something like writing regularly; difficult to get it going again. In the months since I’ve posted anything here half the summer – and a great deal of farm share delights – has come and gone. Bad girl! I resolve to do better. And this time I think I’ll be able to – my pemphigus has (finally!) gone into remission. No more trips downtown for infusions and no more medication that leaves me exhausted and foggy. All I need is my self-discipline back. We’ll see how that goes.

We spent a few days in Maine last week. The hubby and I haven’t done much traveling over the last few years. We were hoping for more time but circumstances prevailed against us. I’m grateful for the few days we had, though. Maine is one of my favorite vacation destinations. It’s wooded and wild, with sea foam and rocky shores along its southernmost border. We stayed at a charming and budget-friendly motel just outside of Belfast. We were close enough to visit Acadia National Park in one direction and the charming little town of Castine in the other. Not bad. I just wish we had more time. Maybe next year?

We picked up some Maine blueberries – the small kind that are intensely flavored – on our way out of town. It’s well into blueberry season here in New England and these little guys never fail to satisfy my deepest berry cravings. I got two pints, since I had some ambitious plans for cooking and baking. We swung by Wilson Farm on our way in, since we had a farm share waiting for us. While we were there we picked up a few peaches as well.

I gorged on blueberries that week and weekend. I sprinkled them into my breakfast cereal and munched them out of hand. At one point I decided to try my hand at blueberry pancakes and dug out my copy of The Joy of Cooking since I wanted to make them from scratch. My husband and I polished off the whole recipe. Yum.

Since I had the cookbook out, I also decided to make a blueberry peach buckle. I’d made it once before, last year when my nephew was in town. It was fabulous with standard-sized berries  and I wondered if it would hold up as well with the small ones from Maine. There was only one way to find out. My husband dragged out my KitchenAid five-quart mixer. This recipe calls for a streusel topping so I retrieved my food processor (very good for cutting cold butter into sugar and flour) and found a space for it on my counter top. Butter, flour, eggs and milk to start, after which the dry ingredients were incorporated. I gently folded in the blueberries and peaches, watched the batter turn blue, sprinkled the streusel over the top and put it into my 350 degree oven to bake for 53 minutes.

How did it turn out? Oh my God, incredible! The cake was cratered with blueberry and peach pieces and the streusel topping was just sweet enough to bring it all together. The crumb was tender and light and looked like it wanted to fall apart, but never did. I cut back a bit on the sugar ,both in the batter as well as in the streusel, and that made all the difference in the world. Last year the sweetness of the cake was a bit overwhelming. This  year everything pulled together and the fruit flavor stood out. I was so happy with the final product that I offered a few pieces to our condo co-owners, who had guests in from out of town. I’m sure it was a dinnertime hit.

I recommend this recipe. It’s flavorful and easy to make. Just cut back on the sugar a tiny bit, to ensure that the blueberries and peaches shine through. The Joy of Cooking is pretty easy to find. It’s probably in your local library and you might even have a copy at home. It’s a common cookbook that’s been around for decades. Try to find an up-to-date version since not all recipes are included in earlier editions

The Maine blueberries are all gone now. I’ve frozen some to have later and will enjoy the rest this week. I don’t know when I’ll be back in Maine. Hopefully we’ll have more time to enjoy all of its offerings the next time we’re there. And more blueberries will be coming home with us when we leave.