Cinnamon Blueberry Cake with streusel topping & vanilla glaze

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Omg doesn't that just sound mouth watering?! Well its blueberry season and since I  live in the blueberry capitol of the world I've been eating them by the bucket, literally. I attempted to make these blueberry crumble bars the other day but went WAAYYYYYY overboard on the blueberry mixture and so instead I got an interesting take on a blueberry buckle with a thin crust on the bottom. It was actually soooooo delicious because I added lemon zest and juice to the berry mix mmmmm.

 Ok anyways, I still have a ton of berries left so i decided to make blueberry muffins to bring into work tomorrow. But like I said before I NEVER have everything I need and I was out of the cupcake/muffin liners. 

So I decided to make a cake instead. And it was a success! 

 This is seriously a scrumptious cake! Its light and sweet with a ton of blueberries. The crumble topping is slightly crunchy but still super smooth and sweet. And then that glaze mmmmm. Just goes perfect with the streusel on top! You know your wishing you could have this cake! 

p.s. I added quite a bit of cinnamon because I can never have enough so feel free to use less, but who would do that?!

If you can't come visit me for a piece lol, here is what ya need:

Cinnamon Blueberry Cake with streusel topping & vanilla glaze

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup  butter, soften
3/4 cup milk
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon1 egg

2 cups fresh blueberries (frozen might work just make sure they are thawed and dry)
    I also toss the blueberries in a little cinnamon before adding to the batterCrumb Topping
    1/2 cup granulated sugar
    1/3 cup all purpose flour
    1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    1/4 cup margarine or butter, softened

    Sprinkle of cinnamon

Mix all ingredients until crumbly. Sprinkle over batter.
Glaze - recipe follows

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 9-inch round pan or 9-inch square pan.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl.
Add milk, egg, and softened butter and mix with a large spoon until well incorporated.
Carefully stir in berries.

Spread batter in 9-inch pan. Sprinkle with crumb topping. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Drizzle with Glaze. Pour a giant glass of milk and try not to eat the whole thing! 

Glaze
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 2 teaspoons milk
   -Mix until sugar is dissolved. Add more sugar or milk as you go if its too thin or too thick. 

Pucker Up!

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Lemon Coolers

(mmmmmmm)

So last night I was finally getting around to getting the rest of my pictures from my trip. Its been a while and we had yet to exchange all of our pictures and I was anxious to see the rest! Anyways we were planning on just hanging out and having some wine and catching up so I thought I would bake something for us to munch on. I was planning on whipping out some monkey bread but didn't feel like running out to the supermarket for supplies & I was at my parents house so I had very little options.

I found one single lemon left in the fridge so I thought lemon bars would be perfect! I have a weird thing about eating with the seasons. I just feel that certain things taste better and go better with certain times of the year. Normal? Yes. Some people (well person lol) think that is completely bizarre. But think about it. How great is an ice cold lemon aide in the middle of summer as opposed to freezing cold winter. So I thought lemon bars are perfect for a summer night with the ladies. So that's what I did. Well I only had one lemon so instead I made lemon coolers!

 How great are they?! Light, crisp, and all citrus-ie with all that powdered sugar on top. MMMM perfect!

So this recipe is super easy. But MAKE SURE you let the dough set in the fridge or freezer. It needs to be firm enough to roll into a ball with out being melty or sticky. I learned the hard way, being as impatient as I am that YOU HAVE TO WAIT! My first batch came out all flat and super burnt on the bottom.

(how great do those look up close! omg mmmmm!)   

I basically just added a tad lemon juice and zest to a simple cookie dough.

Lemon Coolers

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat cookie sheets with cooking spray.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. In seperate bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, cream butter, granulated sugar and lemon zest until creamy (1-2 minutes). Beat in lemon juice, vanilla and eggs until combined. Reduce mixer speed to low adding in dry ingredients until just combined.

 Chill dough in refrigerator or freezer until firm - about 30 minutes.

Roll teaspoons (keep them small for that perfect little crunch) of dough into balls, place on cookie sheets, and bake 10 minutes or until light golden on the bottoms. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely. When cool, dip cookies into confectioners' sugar.

ENJOY!



Monkey Business

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So there were two sad looking over ripe nanners this morning and what do you with those......make banana bread of course. Before I get into the details of the bread and recipe I want to share with you a little insight into my daily life and typical issues when it comes to me and baking. I never have the exact ingredients....ever! I always stock up and have the basics but it always fails, always. When I need buttermilk, none. Not even milk and a lemon. When I need whole milk, I only have non fat. When I need eggs...well let me explain about my eggs today.

 As I was mashing my bananas I was like wait a second. Before I get too ahead of myself I should know something must be missing. It's just a given. So I go into the fridge and yep. All the eggs were gone. No biggie I thought. I will just take a quick walk to the Wawa and pick up some way overpriced eggs. Well, of course I get there and NO EGGS. Which is something that I have never seen before. I was kind of bummed so I decided to ask an employee just in case they didn't finish stocking them back up and what do you know I was in luck! YAY! So the ever so friendly Wawa employee (sarcasm) came out of the back with a stack of egg cartons. YAY again! So as long as I make it back with out dropping them I will be thrilled. It was such a lovely morning for a walk and it will be an even better day for Banana Bread. 

Ok, on to the deliciousness of this creation. I first started with your normal go to banana bread recipe. However I had some leftover mini chocolate chips and wanted to mix them into the bunch. I also added way too much cinnamon as my personal preference. And in an attempt to want to amp this up I made a brown sugar streusel topping. I over mixed it a bit and the butter and everything got a little too incorporated but I thought it might just melt better into the bread and give it a wonderful buttery sugary taste rather than an exact streusel crumb. And I was right! I actually prefer it melted into the bread this way with a crisp brown sugar crust than my original idea of the crumbly streusel. However, if you follow the directions properly unlike myself, you will have that but I'm telling you the messed up version is AMAZING!!!

Well here are the goods: 

Ingredients:

2 C flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon (or a whole bunch in my case)

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 eggs, beaten

1 C sugar

2 bananas, mashed

1/2 C oil

3/4 cup mini semi-sweet morsels

Streusel Topping (recipe follows)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease bottom and sides of one 9X5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  

Mix well and set aside.

In another bowl, combine sugar, eggs, bananas and oil.  

Add banana mixture to the flour mixture and mix until lumpy.

Fold in chocolate.

Pour batter into pan and sprinkle with Streusel Topping.

You can also sprinkle a few chocolate chips right on top as well. 

Bake for about 60 minutes or until toothpick, inserted in center of loaf, comes out clean.

Streusel Topping

Ingredients:

3 T flour

1/4 C brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 T butter

Directions:

Combine first 3 ingredients in a medium size bowl.

Cut butter into mixture using a fork.

Mix until crumbly.