Blueberry Buckle

Molly and I had some time this morning to do some baking. I scored a really good deal on blueberries this week, and so I thought we'd incorporate those somehow. After searching Pinterest for a little bit, I came upon a delicious-looking recipe for blueberry buckle on this blog. For those of you that have never had blueberry buckle, it's kind of a delicious combination between blueberry streusel muffins and a blueberry cake. It's really, really good, and I hadn't made one in a long time. We decided to try that one out today.

I tripled her recipe because I needed a dessert to take to my mom's tonight, and I also thought I could bring some to church tomorrow. I also made a few minor changes, so here's my take on it. Enjoy! :)

BLUEBERRY BUCKLE: 

Makes a 9x13 pan

Preheat oven to 350 

Cake Batter: 

2 cup white all purpose flour (I used Hodgkins Mill, which is unbleached, but it's so much healthier)

2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature (I often just microwave mine until it's barely soft, since I tend to make things on the spur of the moment)

1 cup white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla 

2/3 cup milk (I think it would be delicious if someone tried buttermilk. I didn't think of that until later, though)

3-4 cups of fresh blueberries (I just used a dry pint or so)

Streusel Topping: 

2/3 cup flour

2/3 cup brown sugar (her recipe calls for white, but I love brown sugar streusel)

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1 stick of cold butter, cut into pieces

First thing I did was rinse my beautiful, juicy blueberries off. Aren't they lovely? 

Then I had my Little Helper assist me in tasting the blueberries. I think she approved. :) 

After we tasted inspected the blueberries carefully, we moved on to the recipe. First we mixed the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a separate bowl. I am often tempted to skip this step and dump the dry ingredients right in, but I didn't this time. There's a careful hand mixing process later. 

Next we made up the streusel. If you haven't done streusel before, just mix the flour, sugar, and cinnamon together, and then add the pieces of butter. You can used a pastry cutter or something like that. I just usually use my hands. Work the butter in until the mixture is nice and crumbly. 

Once that was done we set all of those bowls aside and started work on the wet ingredients. 

First, we creamed the butter in our kitchen aid until it was nice and smooth. Then we added the sugar and blended on medium speed until it was light and fluffy (just a minute or two). Then we added the eggs and vanilla one at a time, blending on slow, and mixed until they were incorporated. 

At that point, we took the blending bowl off of the mixer and added about half of our flour mixture. I worked it in gently by hand with a spatula, and added about half the milk. I repeated that with the second half of the flour and the milk, mixing gently until just incorporated (we're doing this gently so it stays nice and fluffy). It looked like this when I was done. 

Then we greased the pans lightly (in your case, the 9x13 pan), and gently spread the mixture into the pans. 

Then we added the blueberries

And finally the streusel. 

Molly and I both agreed it looked good enough to eat already! 

Finally we popped them into the oven for a good 40-50 minutes, until a fork or toothpick inserted in the middle came out clean. The house smelled absolutely wonderful! 

We are very excited to try this out tonight! Would be wonderful warm with some vanilla ice cream, I expect. ;) 

DIY Farmhouse Coat Rack

So my hubby and I have been working on a project the last week or so. I've been wanting to make a coat rack for our front porch. Something rustic and "farmhousey", but sturdy with lots of room for coats and hats. I had seen pictures on Pinterest of "peg" coat racks, and I really liked the look.

The design we came up with was so easy, and cost us under $3.50 to make. Here's a picture of the finished rack. Neat, huh?

The materials we used were:

1 sturdy pallet board
a wooden dowel about 1 inch in diameter (I think we used pine, but it wouldn't matter much)
2 cups day old (or older, just basically leftover) coffee
2 cups white vinegar
1 steel wool pad
wood glue
wood screws
a drill
a 1 inch paddle bit

We started with cutting the dowel. (I didn't know I was going to do a tutorial until last minute, so sorry, lots of skipped pictures . . . ) Josh cut 6 pegs about 3 inches long, and then cut one end of each diagonally so that they would angle upwards.

I then took them and soaked them overnight in the coffee and vinegar with the steel wool floating in it. I got this idea from this blog, where they brushed the mixture onto the wood. I wanted a really dark stain, since my pallet board was dark, and I wanted the dowel pieces to look a little more aged, so I soaked them. You could totally skip this process, though, and paint or stain a different way. Tons of options there. They really turned out great!

After soaking all night, I placed the dowels on paper towels and let them dry out for the day.

Once they were ready I placed them on the board where I wanted them and traced around them with a pencil.

Josh took the board to the garage and used the paddle bit to make a little indention for each dowel to sit in. Then a dot of glue in each, and he put a screw into the back of each through the board.

And that was about it! He hung it up for me on the porch, and I just love it! Rustic, sturdy, "farmhousey", plenty of room, all of that! I can't wait for colder weather so we can actually use it a bit more. For now it will have to be content holding Josh's ball caps. :)