BB: Blueberry Crumb Party Coffee Cake

Baked Nov. 18, 2014, for sister-in-law's pre-school meeting to plan her school's literacy night.

Second recipe tried from The Baking Bible. This is essentially the same recipe as the Coffee Crumb Cake Muffins, or very similar, with blueberries instead of apple slices and baked as a single large coffee cake instead of the Texas-sized muffins.

I used a 13x9 insulated pan and so didn't use cake strips, though I got a good bit of doming and wonder if cake strips would have helped.

Something different in this recipe was the technique of partially baking the cake, then removing it from the oven long enough to strew the blueberries across the top and sprinkle it with the crumb topping. It then went back into the oven for 15-20 minutes (or 25, for mine). My 'wild' blueberries had perhaps been in the freezer too long, which I discovered when I was about to start strewing...hope SIL's co-workers don't mind. Though really, at most workplaces in my experience, if you put out free food you don't get many complaints about the quality. :)

The reports from SIL's teachers ranged from the wit who said it was 'crumby', the woman who would've liked it except for an aversion to walnuts, the one who thought others might want it sweeter though it was fine for her (no one complained, as it happened), and several people who independently said they'd thought the cake would be dry, but found it very moist.

My personal taste test: I need to do this with good blueberries, because even with the freezer burned ones I really enjoyed it. Lovely fluffy crumb, good crunchy topping--it's a very nice cake. It's not a "just whip it out in a few minutes" cake and it messed up a lot of dishes between the mixer and the food processor, but the results were very good.