Oops!

Sometimes things don’t go as well as planned. Take this coffee cake, for instance. It’s one of my favorite all-time coffee cakes. It has a layer of streusel on the bottom, and one of streusel and blueberries in the middle. Ridiculously tasty. But today it didn’t want to come out of the bundt pan. I wiggled a knife around the edge, around the middle, and lo, when it fell out, part of the bottom (now top) layer of cake stayed in the pan. Arrrgh! I know it all will taste the same (and you wouldn’t have been the wiser if I’d only shown you a slice!) but I’m supposed to bring this to my grandmother’s tomorrow. Oh well. I’ve made this probably six or seven times, and this is the first time it’s ever happened. As such, I highly recommend you try it out. It’s a recipe I found on allrecipes a long time ago–I like allrecipes because you can tell by the comments what works and what doesn’t–and I’ve tweaked it a bit over time. I add more blueberries, less streusel, more milk than the original recipe, based on reading all the comments a couple times over, and a few trial runs. Trial runs where, in fact, the cake came out of the darn pan.

Here’s the recipe:
Blueberry Coffee Cake

Streusel:
2/3 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. flour
a scant tsp cinnamon
1/4 c. butter (the recipe calls for a half cup, but I never use that much)

Cake:
2 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter, softened (one stick)
1 c. white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c milk mixed with 1 T vinegar for a few minutes (curdles it so it’s like buttermilk)
1 1/2 c. fresh or frozen (unthawed) blueberries

Heat oven to 350. Grease the pants out of a bundt pan, and flour it to death, too.

Make the streusel by mixing brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon, and cutting butter in. I use my fingers for this.

Beat 1/2 c. butter in bowl of your mixer until creamy; add white sugar, and beat until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, and beat in. Whisk together your dry ingredients and add them alternately with the curdled milk, mixing well after each one. Put half the batter (it’s thick, don’t worry about it being a pretty perfect layer) in the pan. Place blueberries and half your streusel on top. Add the rest of the batter, and cover with the rest of the streusel. Bake 55-60 minutes.

Let it cool thoroughly before trying to get it out of the pan. Then, putting a plate on the top of the pan and holding the two together, invert and hope for the best!