Blueberry Buckle is a moist coffee cake bursting with blueberries and topped with a cinnamon crumb. This quick and easy recipe is the perfect use for those ripe summer berries!
I have another blueberry dessert to share with you today; the kind of dessert you can also serve for breakfast: coffee cake!
Reasons To Make This Blueberry Dessert:
- The buttery crumb cake base is irresistible.
- Bursting with blueberries, it’s a great way to use fresh, or frozen, berries.
- It makes for a unique brunch dish or dessert.
- It’s great at room temperature, or served warm, topped with ice cream.
- Need a dish that’s easily transported? This Blueberry Buckle fits the bill perfectly!
Blueberry Buckle
This isn’t your everyday coffee cake. Blueberry Buckle is packed full of juicy fresh blueberries that are surrounded by one of the moistest coffee cakes you’ve ever tasted.
If that’s not enough to convince you to make this cake, may I mention the topping? The whole cake is covered in a crumb topping made from brown sugar, cinnamon and butter!
That means that not only are you eating an amazing blueberry cake, you also don’t have to worry about decorating it. As much as I love frosting, sometimes you want an easy cake that you can just bake, cool, and eat. Plus, you can serve Coffee Cake for breakfast, dessert or an afternoon snack. It’s the most versatile of cakes.
Blueberry Buckle Recipe
Let’s talk about the cake ingredients. The ingredients you need are common ones that are likely already in your pantry. The full printable recipe, with amounts, can be found at the bottom of the page.
Cake Ingredients:
- Butter – Salted or unsalted, your preference.
- Sugar – granulated white sugar.
- Egg – I always use large eggs in my recipes.
- Vanilla – pure vanilla extract is the way to go if you can.
- Buttermilk – If you don’t have buttermilk, try a buttermilk substitute.
- Flour – go with all-purpose here.
- Baking soda – always check the expiration date.
- Salt – table salt or sea salt works.
- Fresh Blueberries – Washed and dried. You can substitute frozen, but you’ll need to increase the baking time for the cake. If you are using fresh blueberries, I highly recommend tossing them in flour prior to folding into the batter. This helps prevent them from sinking to the bottom. If you use frozen blueberries, let thaw to room temperature and rise well, unless you want a purple cake.
Topping Ingredients:
- Brown sugar – light or dark works.
- Butter – Kept cold and cut into pieces.
- Cinnamon – if you are a big cinnamon fan, you can increase the amount a bit.
- Flour – all-purpose works here as well.
Making this recipe is super simple. It’s your standard combine wet ingredients, dry ingredients and then bring them together. To make the yummy crumb topping, the traditional way to do it is to cut the cold butter in.
I’ve mentioned a few times that I just don’t love cutting in butter – just my baking quirk, I guess. So instead of cutting it in, I toss my topping ingredients into a food processor and pulse a few times. I find this much easier. The downside is you tend to get a more fine and dense crumb than if you cut in by hand. If that doesn’t bother you, and you have a food processor, give it a whirl… literally!
How to make Blueberry Buckle coffee cake:
- Make the cake batter:In a large mixing bowl, with a mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in egg and vanilla and mix. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt, mix well. Next add half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Then add in half the buttermilk and mix until just combined. Add remaining dry ingredients and mixed until just combined. Finally, add in remaining buttermilk and mix until combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Scoop into a prepared 9 x 9 baking pan.
- Prepare the topping: For topping, mix together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon until well combined. Cut in cold butter and mix until a crumb like mixture is created. Sprinkle over cake batter. If desired, you can make your topping in the food processor as mentioned above.
- Bake: Bake in an oven preheated to 375 F for 35 – 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Take note, if you use frozen blueberries, or a smaller pan, your bake time WILL increase.
- Serve: Let cool, then slice and enjoy! If you are feeling decadent, top with vanilla ice cream and some blueberry compote!
Blueberry Desserts
I’ll eat blueberries all year long, thank you very much, but I’m an especially big fan of baking with them in the summertime. Not only are the berries usually at their sweetest and juiciest, they’re also less expensive which means I can add them to anything and everything imaginable–or freeze them for year-round baking!
Looking for more crowd pleasing blueberry and fruit filled desserts and treats? Don’t miss these easy recipes:
- Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake
- Blueberry Lemon Muffins
- Berry Crumble Bars
- Blueberry Dump Cake
- Blueberry Pancakes
- Sugar Cookie Fruit Pizza
- Blackberry Cobbler
Blueberry Buckle
Ingredients
Cake
- 1/4 cup butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup buttermilk milk can also be used
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1-2 cups fresh blueberries*, washed and dried
Topping
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 cup cold butter cut into small pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9×9 baking pan and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, with a mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in egg and mix until well combined. Add in vanilla and mix until well combined.
- In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt, mix well. Add half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Add in half the buttermilk and mix until just combined. Add remaining dry ingredients and mixed until just combined. Add in remaining buttermilk and mix until combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Scoop into prepared baking pan.
- For topping, mix together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon until well combined. Cut in cold butter and mix until a crumb like mixture is created. Sprinkle over cake batter.
- Bake for approximately 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Notes
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Isobel says
Can I use different fruit ?
Christi Johnstone says
Sure!
Donna says
If you use thawed blueberries, why would it increase the bake time?
Christi Johnstone says
Donna, if the blueberries are cold, even if not frozen, it will take longer for them to come to temperature and bake when compared to fresh blueberries. The frozen ones are like little ice cubes. š
Isabella says
Want to try this but says baking soda on list of ingredients then directions call for baking podwer …please let us know
Christi Johnstone says
Sorry, that was a type, it’s baking soda as listed in the recipe. š
RJ says
Very tasty! The topping turned out great.
Isabella says
Amazing!