52 New Recipes in 52 Weeks #2 Sour Cream and Blueberry Coffee Cake

One of my projects for 2024 is to try one new recipe each week for the year.  These will be chosen from all of the flagged pages in cookbooks that I have or from the file of 'need to try' recipes.  I will try new desserts, main dishes, side dishes and breads.

Sunday morning, I decided to try the Sour Cream and Blueberry Coffee Cake from Mario Batali's Big American Cookbook.  I've never been a fan of Mario's, not even when he was on the Chew.  I actually bought this book prior to his unfortunate public situation.  I bought it because it was on the $5.00 shelf at Barnes and Noble and it really is a fun book with a lot of good recipes covering regional favorites throughout the US.

"Tucked at the bottom of the menu of Hobee's restaurant, suspiciously under the heading of "Light Bites," is the reason a lot of people are there in the first place: the blueberry coffee cake.  It's the thing people who leave the southern San Francisco Bay Area say they miss and they try to replicate."

For the cake:

1 1/2 cups of fresh blue berries.  I used a frozen bag I had in the freezer from our Summer berry picking.

2 cups AP flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

For the brown sugar topping:

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the sour cream topping:

1 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a 9x9 square pan.

Rinse the berries and then toss them in 1/2 cup of flour.  Pour the berries in a colander and shake the excess flour off.  Set aside.

Add 1 1/2 cups of flour to a bowl along with the baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In separate bowl or stand mixer, beat together the eggs, sour cream, vanilla and sugar until well combined.  Slowly add in the flour mixture and continue to mix until a silky smooth batter forms.

Pour half of the batter in the prepared pan, and scatter most of the berries over the top of the batter.  Pour on the rest of the batter and the remaining berries.

In a small bowl, combine the ingredients for the cinnamon topping.  Mixing well.  Sprinkle on top of the cake.

Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes.  In my oven, it took 38.  

Whip the sour cream and sugar well to top each slice. I topped each slice as we ate it and stored the remaining mixture in the refrigerator until we needed it.

This cake is amazing. The cake is moist, the blueberries bring a fresh sweetness and the cinnamon crumble on top is delicious.  I wasn't sure if I was going to like the sour cream topping since I actually have never tried it before. I really did though, it's absolutely perfect on this cake.   This is a wonderful cake for breakfast or a mid day snack.  TBG and I both give this a 10 and we don't give 10's easily.  It really is that good.  I may never make blue berry muffins again.