Blueberry Cornmeal Crumb Cake

It's Spring Break. My sister is off gallivanting around the Grand Canyon and hopefully not getting eaten by bears or donkeys. The sole piece of advice my mother doled out to my sister before she left was "Don't sleep in huts." When pressed to explain herself further she said, "Mouse turds are dangerous." Piper and I decided to leave it at that.

That, however, leaves me alone and my monastic, hermit-like tendencies have come out in full force. "But it's South by Southwest!" I hear you cry. "And you live in Austin!" Well, reader, I am actually just a well-disguised 80-year-old curmudgeon at heart. I hate crowds, and loud, drunken young people give me indigestion. Besides, campus is really, really nice now that all the college students are gone. Just me and the squirrels.

There is, however, only so much Poirot one can watch before stir-craziness sets in. And by stir-craziness I mean the intense urge to stir batter around in circles in various bowls. So in one day I made the Grapefruit Teacake and this Blueberry Crumb Cake. And it's not six o'clock yet.

This pretty cake is from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. As I try to trace the lineage of this particular baking experiment, I realize that I was initially going to make blueberry muffins because I have a ton of leftover buttermilk in the fridge. Then I got all distracted by the pretty pictures in Smitten...I guess I have to make blueberry muffins now. DARN.

These are delicate little bars that are perfect for snacking or accompanying a spot of afternoon tea. Because I'm all into being rustic now, I used large and small blueberries and the cornmeal gives the cake a pleasant bit of flavor and crunch. I guess all that's left to do now is decide on a muffin recipe.

Blueberry Cornmeal Crumb Cake (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Cake: 
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated lemon (I used lime) zest
1/3 cup sour cream (I used half sour cream, half cream cheese--yay adaptation!)
2 cups blueberries (I used frozen, in any case, thaw rinse and dry before using)

Streusel:
1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cornmeal
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of a baking pan (8x10 or 8x8) with parchment, then either butter or spray the sides of the pan with nonstick spray.

Whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in medium bowl and set aside. Using a mixer, beat the butter with sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla and zest. Add a third of the flour mixture, all of the sour cream/cream cheese, another third of the flour, beating until just blended after each addition. Mix the remaining third of the flour mixture with the blueberries and gently fold in to the batter. Spread the batter into the pan.

Create the streusel by mixing the dry ingredients and crumbing the butter in with your fingertips. Scatter the streusel over the cake batter (I did not use all the streusel I had made). Bake the cake until golden brown, and a clean knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, roughly 35 minutes. Cool the cake for 5 minutes, then flip it out onto a cooling rack and slice to serve.

Pretty batter and a lovely cake. Enjoy!