Shortly after we’d moved into our first home, I suggested to Shane that we should clean out our gutters before the first storm arrived and dumped a ton of heavy snow on the roof. The ground in front of our house is uneven, and there’s a rock formation in one area that made it difficult to safely set up a ladder to climb up to the gutters. It was such a comedy of errors that our mailman stopped his truck to get out and help us. We’d barely exchanged hellos to that point, maybe just a wave here or there, but that day marked the beginning of our friendship with Louis. Now it’s not uncommon for me to share baked goods with him or for us to chat about what’s going on in our lives.
Last week as I was in the middle of making this cake, Louis knocked on the door to deliver a package I’d been eagerly awaiting. I already had the batter together, and was just getting ready to fold in the blueberries. Louis was particularly chatty that day and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I needed to get back in and tend to my cake. Twenty minutes later I finally spread the batter in the pan, popped it into the oven and hoped for the best. The good news? No ill effects, proof this recipe is quite forgiving.
As the name suggests, this is a really simple cake – no streusel or frosting, just a moist, fluffy cake packed with blueberries. I didn’t have the 11×7 pan Dorie suggested so I baked my cake in a 9×9 pan instead, the baking time stayed the same. Even though I tossed the blueberries with flour before adding them, they still sank to the bottom of the cake. I shared most of the cake with my stepfather, and later heard that he’d eaten almost all of it within the first two days, so I guess he liked it 🙂 I did try a piece and thought it was good, maybe just a tad too basic for me. I’d probably choose to spend calories on something slightly more decadent, but I think the simplicity of the cake makes it easy to justify as a breakfast treat.
Many thanks to Cindy of Everyday Insanity for hosting this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie. The recipe for the blueberry-brown sugar plain cake can be found on her blog or on page 36 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.
Lemon Bars
Glazed Grapefruit Cake
Orange Sherbet
Meyer Lemon Pound Cake
Wow Tracey – looks delicious as always! I love fresh berries this time of year.
Very Easy. Perfect for breafkast!!
These were nice. Photo makes them look even better!!
A perfect cake, sometimes simple is what I crave.
I messed up my egg whites but the cake still turned out fine, so it is very forgiving! I love blueberries and this cake was great!
I see this and wish we’d had more than just a few weeks of baking at culinary school (I wrote about it here, if you’re interested: “Culinary School: Three Semesters of Life, Learning, and Loss of Blood” http://amzn.to/eOKJWw – on Amazon Kindle). Ah well. Time to teach myself!
Beautiful photos of your cake. Nicely done!
What a great mailman! Ours skips our house if he has no mail to deliver – even though the flag is very noticably up on our mailbox with a letter that needs to go out. At least, he used to skip our house until I cashed in airline miles for about 17 magazine subscriptions. Now between those and the five credit card applications we get each week, he HAS to come to our house every day. 🙂
Gorgeous. So glad it turned out the way it did! 🙂
I want to make friends with my mailman! He’s a nice guy. I should start baking for him, I guess…
Your cake looks lovely. This one was surprisingly delicious – not plain at all!
Oh, yeah, that looks so good…I did make it and mine looked nice, but yours really rocks. I think we should find more things to do with blueberries this week.
great job with this one – it shines in all its simplicity. mmmm
It is basic, but very nice for an afternoon snack.
It looks yummy, even if it is basic. If you can eat cake for breakfast, it has to be a good day!
Thanks Tracey for baking along with me this week. This was basic, but a scoop of vanilla ice cream fixed that! Have a great day.
looks great! and I agree that it’s very forgiving… i forgot to mention it in my post but I over whipped the egg whites beyond the firm peaks stage to the chunky stage (I was feeding my daughter dinner simultaneously!) and the cake still turned out fine 🙂
I think this cake looks wonderful! Sometimes less is more, and I am sure the blueberries make it delicious! This looks like a great cake to share,(as you did) and I know just the person. Thanks for a great post!!
I can see how moist this is… it looks fantastic! I can’t wait until our NS Blueberry Harvest!
Wow does this look good! Anything with bluberries has my name all over it. 🙂
It’s so nice to have a kind and friendly mailman. Giving him baked goods helps, too. Looks wonderful, Tracey! The books look great, too. I would really enjoy getting a look at both of them.
Your cake looks perfect! I don’t blame your stepdad for eating it so quickly, it is super-good and very snackable.
I’m sure giving your mailman baked goods and chatting with him ensures safe mail delivery. Eloise always barks at our mailman.
My berries on the bottom of the cake make the lower half pretty soggy. Yours look great. But yes, please pass the crumbs.
This looks yummy, and I think your decision to make this in a 9×9 makes it look even better than the ones I’ve seen. I doubled mine and made it in a bundt pan and it was lovely.
How funny that you have such a good relationship with your mailman. I’m sure ours doesn’t like us–all the mailboxes for our neighborhood are together in one section, and we’re really bad about checking ours regularly. =) I really need to try this cake soon. It sounds like it was well received by everyone.