Nagi’s Bursting Blueberry Crumb Cake (Modified)
This is Nagi’s recipe for Bursting Blueberry Crumb Cake but modified and simplified (I’ve made it a few times, so I put this version up for my personal one notes). Full credit to Nagi — Recipe Tin Eats is one of my favourite food blogs, up there with Serious Eats.
The modifications below are to assume frozen blueberries, metric ingredients (she caters to a world audience!) and a fan-forced oven, and a slightly changed order of operations.
It’s a simple cake to make but glamorous and delicious. There’s the lemony sour cream cake at the bottom, the blueberries above it, and the cinnamon crumb at the top. It all comes together wonderfully.
Making the cake is very simple, but it does take time to bake — around 75 minutes if you’re using frozen blueberries (as I always do, as it’s much more convenient).
Ingredients
This is in three parts — for the crumb (or “streusel”, typically seen on muffins and pastries), the cake, and the blueberries.
Lemon Vanilla Cake
- 200 g plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp lemon zest (approx. ~2 lemons worth)
- 2 large eggs
- 90 g unsalted butter, melted then cooled slightly
- 70 g sour cream, at room temperature
- 80 ml milk
Crunch crumb
- 100 g plain flour
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1/8 tsp (or a pinch) salt
- 60 g
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Blueberries
- 500 g frozen blueberries
- 2 tsp lemon juice (of ~1 lemon)
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
- 3 tbsp plain flour
Instructions
You’ll need three bowls (in fact, four, but I re-use one of them!) and a 20cm baking pan.
- Preheat your oven to 180°C (fan-forced).
- Line pan: Line the bottom of a 20 cm springform pan with baking parchment and grease the sides. (Note that larger pans make for a faster bake.)
- Make cake batter:
- Whisk flour: In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Whisk wet ingredients (including sugar): In a larger bowl, whisk the sugar, vanilla extract, lemon zest, and eggs until the surface is foamy (about 15 seconds). Add the melted butter (cooled!) and sour cream, whisking until smooth.
- Fold flour and wet ingredients: With a rubber spatula, in batches, fold the flour into the wet ingredients. Finally, add the milk and stir until combined. Some small lumps are okay!
- Make crumb (streusel): In a medium bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add the melted butter and vanilla extract, and mix with a fork until all the flour is wet but still lumpy.
- Prep blueberries: Do this right before assembly. Toss the frozen blueberries with lemon juice to wet the surface. Sprinkle with sugar and flour, tossing to coat.
- Assemble: Batter, then blueberries + leftover flour/sugar + crumb.
- Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and smooth the surface.
- Scatter the blueberries evenly on top, starting from the outer edge and working inward. Sprinkle any residual flour and sugar from the blueberry bowl over the blueberries to help prevent sinking.
- Cover the top with the streusel. If you have powdery bits, clench them in your fist to create clumps before scattering.
- Bake: Bake for 75 minutes on a middle tray at 180 degrees fan-forced, rotating the pan halfway through, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (other than a blueberry smear).
Notes
- Don’t beat together the cake batter. It needs to stay light.
- The baking time may seem long, but it’s because it’s a moisture-heavy cake with frozen berries.
- Check the bake to make sure the crumb isn’t burning. If it’s getting too toasty at the half-way mark, move the cake lower in the oven.
Serving
Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing the sides of the pan, and another 10 minutes before serving.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or warm custard.