Lemon Blueberry Coffeecake

I love love love this coffeecake.  It is easy to make, has wonderful flavor and you can eat it for breakfast, snack or dessert.  I love multi-tasking recipes.  It also freezes beautifully and tastes fresh after thawing.  I made this today for my friend Andrea who just had a baby last week.

Be sure to use fresh lemons.  I tried zesting older lemons and the lemon flavor is not as prominent.  (Or if you have an abundance of lemons, you can freeze the zest in a baggie and juice in a ice tray.  I love having zest on hand.)  If you don’t have lemon extract, it is fantastic when making lemon loaves!

Why room temperature eggs and sour cream?  The dairy ingredients are much better at trapping air bubbles when they are at room temperature.  Cold ingredients can’t trouble air bubbles as well and therefore do not make as tender a cake.

Lemon Blueberry Coffeecake
adapted from King Arthur Flour

Cake:
8 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, room temp.
1 cup sour cream, room temperature (I have also tried with plain greek yogurt as well.  Worked great!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I’ve also tried with 1/2 tsp. vanilla and 1/2 tsp. fiori di sicilia extract.  Good, too.)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh blueberries (or frozen)

Topping:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup flour
pinch of salt
2 tsp. lemon zest (zest of 2 medium lemons)
6 tablespoons butter, softened (I ran low once and used 4 Tb.  It turned out fine!)
1/8 teaspoon lemon extract

Directions:

1.  Preheat 350 degrees.  Spray or grease and flour a 9×13 or 2 round 8″ pans.  You will need 1 large bowl and 1 medium bowl (used twice), a mixer and a spatula.
2.  For coffeecake: Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and beat one at a time.  Add sour cream and vanilla and beat.
3.  Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add to batter and stir only a few times.  Make sure to under-stir a little because you will be stirring more times once you add the blueberries.
4.  Fold in blueberries.  Spread the batter into the prepped pan.  Especially with the greek yogurt, the batter can be thick.  I spread it with a spatula that I sprayed with cooking spray and this trick works well (even on sticky stuff like Rice Krispy treats, too.)
5.  For topping: In the bowl you had your flour mixture in before and dumped out, whisk together sugar, flour and salt.  Toss in lemon zest.  Cut in butter until it resembles crumbs.  Sprinkle lemon extract and toss.  Then sprinkle the topping onto the batter.
6.  Bake 30-35 minutes in 9×13 pan or 20-25 minutes in 2 round pans.  Test with toothpick and cool before serving.

**Freezing instructions**  For gifts to people, I bake this in a disposable round pan that has a lid.  (3 pans for $1 at Dollar Tree)  Freeze once it is completely cooled.  Thawing directions:  Leave on counter overnight.  Easy!  For just myself, I wrap sections up in foil and then put them in freezer bags.  Easy breakfast in the morning.

Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour