Blueberry buttermilk coffee cake

The great thing about buying 2 pounds of frozen blueberries is that you can certainly get some mileage out of them. It's handy to just have a bag in the freezer for a rainy day when the urge to cake oneself with flour and butter takes hold such that you bust out a new recipe, such as this blueberry buttermilk coffee cake. It's another favourite of my mother's (as seems to be the theme this week), and we'd had it several times at her place before.

Recipe

2-1/4 cups flour3/4 tsp salt1 cup brown sugar1/2 cup granulated sugar3/4 cup butter1-1/2 tsp cinnamon1 tsp grated lemon peel1/2 tsp all spice1 tsp baking soda1 tsp baking powder1 egg, beaten1 cup buttermilk1 tsp vanilla1 1/2 cups blueberries1/4 cup flour1/2 cup chopped walnutsPreheat oven to 350 F. Stir 2 cups flour, salt, brown sugar, sugar and butter together in a large bowl. Cut in butter until well blended but not smooth. Set aside 3/4 cup of this mixture for topping. Add 1/2 tsp cinnamon, lemon peel, allspice, baking soda and powder to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.Make a well in the centre of dry ingredients and add egg, buttermilk, and 1 tsp vanilla. Stir in until just blended. Toss blueberries in flour and fold in gently, distributing evenly throughout. Pour in greased square baking pan. Add walnuts and remaining cinnamon to reserved topping mixture and sprinkle evenly over batter.Bake 50-55 minutes or until cake tests done. Serve warm.

Musings

A few notes on preparation: I actually only had 1/2 cup of buttermilk, but I topped up with milk and a dollop of the creme fraiche we'd made. In my haste to crush up the allspice berries (we only had whole ones), I completely forgot to add in grated lemon peel. We didn't actually have lemon, and I would've likely substituted orange peel or something. The cake didn't seem the worse for wear though. Also, on the recipe, my mother noted that she uses chopped pecans instead of walnuts, so that's also an option.The recipe advertised that this was an "exceptionally moist and tender coffee cake"; they weren't lying. The topping is sweet, but with a great texture from the walnuts. The cake was, as advertised, exceedingly moist and crumbly. Despite dousing them with flour, a portion of my blueberries still sunk to the bottom, but not all of them, so we're making progress. While mixing the wet and dry ingredients, I was a bit concerned that the batter looked lumpy (as I'd cut in the butter to the dry stuff, to a pebbly consistency). But happily its lumpiness seemed to resolve itself during baking.