Just a reminder, there’s no coffee in coffee cake. Coffee cake is cake to be eaten with a perfect cup of coffee. And that, my friends, is what a weekend quarantine breakfast is all about. Throw in a good book or a good companion and you’re in heaven.
I’ve been making this cake for decades, except that I had forgotten all about it for the past five or six years. Somehow this recipe went missing from one of my 13 recipe binders. I didn’t even notice. Then my daughter Hannah brought this coffee cake over as a first day of on-line school snack during the 2020 pandemic. I asked her for the recipe. To which she responded, with a disbelieving eye roll, “Mommmm, it’s YOUR recipe”. Ooops.
So here it is, the replacement for the missing recipe, the best blueberry coffee cake on the planet, Blueberry Upside-Down Coffee Cake.
Hint #1: If there’s no need for a fancy display, then there’s no need to actually turn the whole cake upside down. Just carve out a slice and turn upside down onto your plate. You can add whipped cream, or not, depending on your breakfast/brunch rules.
Hint #2: Don’t skimp on the lemon zest. The lemon zest (and butter) is what makes this cake sing!
I like this cake much better than any cake cooked with blueberries mixed into the batter. Cooked blueberries mess with the texture of any cake. In this cake, the blueberries shine as a layer, and the buttery cake also shines as a layer. You get to enjoy both the cake and the blueberries without one interfering with the other. Win-win! Oh, and it’s supposed to be served warm, win-win-win!
Blueberry Upside-Down Coffee Cake
For the Blueberry Layer
- ¼ cup butter
- 2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
- 3-4 cups fresh blueberries (18-24 oz)
- 1 ½ tsp grated lemon zest
- Get out your best 9×13 inch pan.
- In a small saucepan, melt butter.
- Stir in brown sugar and boil gently for 3 full minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Pour the mixture into the bottom of the 9×13 pan, spreading carefully to make an even layer.
- Pour fresh blueberries on top of butter/brown sugar mixture.
- Sprinkle lemon zest evenly over the blueberry layer.
For the Cake
- ¾ cup butter
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour (310 grams)
- 2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 ½ teaspoons grated lemon zest
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- With an electric mixer beat together butter and sugar. Continue to beat until light and fluffy, approx. 3-5 minutes.
- Gradually add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Stir in vanilla.
- Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.
- Add 1/3rd of dry ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture and beat well.
- Add half of the milk and beat until all of the milk has been incorporated,
- Add another 1/3 of dry ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture and beat well.
- Add remaining milk and beat until all of the milk has been incorporated.
- Add remaining flour mixture and beat well.
- Stir in lemon zest
- Pour batter over blueberries in 9×13 pan. Smooth with a spatula.
- Place pan in a 350-degree oven for 45-50 minutes. The top will be well browned. Use a toothpick to check that cake in the middle of the pan has been cooked.
- Remove cake from the oven. If inverting, let cool for 3 minutes. Run a knife along all sides to loosen the cake from the pan. Invert onto a large rectangular platter or cutting board.
- Serve warm, with or without optional whipped cream or pouring custard.