Old Fashioned Blueberry Buckle Recipe

What would a summertime meal be without a delicious fruit-based dessert to cap it off? Thanks to the miracle of modern agricultural methods, not to mention refrigerated food transport, we can now enjoy once-seasonal fruits year-round, so we have the option to enjoy fruit-filled delights even in the dead of winter, something our great-grandmothers could only dream of.

Sometimes, the old recipes are the best, though, which is the case with this old-school blueberry buckle that was revived for us by recipe developer Kristin Carli. A buckle, unlike a crisp, crumble, cobbler, or betty, does not involve simply covering fruit with a batter or crumb topping but incorporates all of these elements. As to how this dessert gets its name, the Farmer's Almanac says that the weight of the fruit plus the topping causes the batter to "buckle" as it bakes. Carli tells us that, with a buckle, "The texture is similar to a cake, but it has a crispy topping." She goes on to say, "Fresh blueberry buckle is my favorite way to use up the end-of-summer blueberries."

Before you make this blueberry buckle, check your pantry and fridge, as a few of the ingredients are staples you're likely to have on hand: butter, brown sugar, an egg, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and milk. A note on the butter: Carli used the unsalted type in this recipe, but if you've only got the salted kind on hand, that's okay. Just reduce the amount of salt used in this recipe from half a teaspoon to a quarter of a teaspoon, and you'll be fine.

As for the blueberries, fresh are best if they're available, but Carli does say, "You can use frozen blueberries instead."

Before you start making the batter, go ahead and preheat the oven to 350 F, and spray an 8x8-inch square pan with some non-stick cooking spray while you're at it. Now take half a stick of the butter and mix it with three-quarters of a cup of the brown sugar and the egg. Carli used a stand mixer, although you can use a hand mixer or even beat the ingredients by hand if you really want to go old school.

In a separate bowl, whisk together one and a half cups of the flour with the baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt. Add these dry ingredients to the sugar/butter mixture along with the milk, then mix everything together until you've got batter. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it out with a spoon or spatula. It's not quite oven-ready yet, though. First, you'll need to mix the remaining flour and brown sugar, then cut in the remaining butter with a knife or fork or even, if you have such a thing, an old-fashioned dough blender/pastry cutter. Once this mixture starts to resemble crumbs, sprinkle it over the blueberry batter, and pop the pan into the oven.

This blueberry buckle should be done baking in 40 minutes, though you'll need to let it cool just a few minutes more before digging in. If you'd like to have the buckle for dessert, Carli says it's "delicious as is," but also suggests you might like to add "a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream." However way you like it, she tells us that it's "delicious with milk."

One thing Carli mentions about this blueberry buckle, though, is its "crumb cake-like texture." Well, if it's anything like crumb cake, that suggests it could work as a delightfully indulgent breakfast too, and it would be the perfect accompaniment to a morning cup of coffee.