In my house, summer means fresh fruits and veggies. My kids and I could live on fresh picked produce in the summer (Lenny, not so much. but he puts up with us!!). This week, my grocery shopping trip yielded a bonanza of local blueberries. So I dug into my recipes to find a likely candidate to showcase these tasty little beauties.

I came up with 2 choices: Grandma Alice’s Blueberry Buckle or Grandma Barbara’s Blueberry Cake.

I’ve made the Blueberry Buckle hundreds of times. It is definitely a family favorite. But I’ve never made the Blueberry Cake, so I went with that one. And, my mother’s birthday is coming up next week, so I’ll make the Buckle for her then because she loves it.

Quick side note. I have wonderful memories of both of my Grandmothers and talk about them often. My kids know them through stories I’ve told, but mostly through the food I make. One day a couple of months ago, I made Grandma Barbara’s Muffins for dinner. My daughter Taylor said “are these Grammy Babs’ muffins?” Grammy Babs. Hmmmm. I thought about it a minute. No one that knew her would ever have called her Babs (my grandfather called her Barb). But my kid, who was born 28 years after she passed away, feels close enough to her through the cooking that she shared to give her a personal nickname. Wow. I consider that a win! And I’m sure she thinks so too. Thanks Grammy Babs!

Sometimes, if it is a recipe that I have made before, I will tweak it slightly. In this case, as I have no experience with it, I trusted in my Grandmother’s experience and prepared the recipe exactly as is. One minor exception to that is I sprinkled a little bit of extra sugar onto the top. This gave the top a nice crispy crunch that was really yummy.

This recipe gave more details than some she used. That’s good. The recipe called for Crisco. I don’t typically use Crisco, except in Grammy Babs’ recipes, so l’m lucky that I had some in my baking cabinet. Also, it didn’t call for any salt. I would probably add a 1/2 tsp. next time because I like the depth a bit of salt gives to the flavor of a cake.

Things I had to figure out myself were minimum the time. It didn’t say the size of the pan, so I used a square glass cake pan. The temperature said “Moderate”. Gram cooked in a wood-burning stove, so I always assume Moderate to mean 350-375°F. I also stayed true to Gram’s “everything by hand” rule of thumb, and mixed everything in this recipe by hand – no new fangled electric mixers for this cake. Sorry Kitchenaid Stand Mixer that I love so well!! Next time!

The only problem that I encountered was that 25 minutes was definitely not enough time. I ended up baking for about 35, and it probably could have stood a few more minutes. All in all, though, the family was very pleased with the final result – even Lenny, who’s not a big fan of berries! Another win!

Grammy Bab’s Blueberry Cake

Prep Time: 10 min      Cook Time: 35 min      Total Time: 45 min
Yield: 12

Ingredients

• 5 tbsp. Crisco
• 1 cup + 2 tbsp. sugar (separated)
• 2 eggs – beaten
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 3/4 cup + 1 tbsp. flour (separated)
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 cup blueberries

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. Grease an 8″ square cake pan and set aside.
3. Cream Crisco and sugar in a large bowl.
4. Add eggs and stir until just mixed.
5. In separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder.
6. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture and mix well.
7. Stir in blueberries, which have been tossed in a tbsp. each of flour and sugar.
8. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tbsp. sugar.
9. Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes.
10. Serve warm with whipped cream.