Blueberry Boy Bait

Have you ever made something so good that you had to get it out of your house before you absolutely inhaled it? Yeah – this recipe is called “Blueberry Boy Bait” but I think it should be called “Blueberry Bombs Shelley’s Diet.” Because this cake is to die for.

I’ve been obsessed lately with Smitten Kitchen’s blog and this is yet another recipe that I found from her site that I made almost as soon as I read about it.

Smitten Kitchen got it from Cook’s Country who got it from a 1954 Pillsbury Bake-Off recipe.


Blueberry Boy Bait

2 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour (**don’t do what I do and think … oh – the 2 c. + 1 tsp. Needs to go into the bowl all at once, you’ll use the 1 tsp later! Really!)
1 T. baking powder
1 tsp. table salt
2 sticks unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup milk (recipe calls for whole, SmitKit used buttermilk, I used 2%)
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not defrost first as it tends to muddle in the batter)

Topping
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

Whisk two cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down bowl. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining one teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.

For the topping:
Scatter blueberries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)

So … what’s with mixing the blueberries with flour? Supposedly if you do that, it will keep the blueberries from sinking down to the bottom of the cake. Really didn’t work for me. Not that it mattered, this cake was pure buttery sin.