With only a short pause, we went from picking strawberries and making strawberry preserves to picking blueberries and freezing them for jam since it will be too hot to bring them to market this week.
We've been picking for days, and I'm going to start picking early and end early on Monday since by 10am it will probably be unbearable. The refrigerator is full, and the freezer is starting to accumulate a lot of gallon-sized bags of blueberries. I have the rest of the week to find organic limes (I may have to use conventional) and maybe next week it will cool off enough to make some Blueberry Lime Preserves since I only have 2 jars left. Maybe some Chipotle Lime Blueberry?
I did make a blueberry buckle using my grandmother's recipe (which I think she got from her mother, since my dad's cousin has the same recipe, her mom and my grandmother were sisters. Actually my Aunt Em's recipe uses a smaller pan, but she had 2 girls, my grandmother had 5 boys so she used a rimmed cookie sheet instead of an 8x8 deep pan.).
I had to quickly take this picture of the 1 piece left tonight before my husband ate it. The Boy took a slab with him on the bus on the way to Scout Camp - that will be his dessert tonight and breakfast in the morning if it lasts that long.
But here is the recipe (measurements are approximate since I wrote this down in the 70's while watching my grandmother make it and she never measured anything!):
Hon's Blueberry Buckle (serves 8-10 adults, or maybe 5-6 teenage boys)
Sift together 2C flour, 3/4C sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt into a large bowl. Add 2 very large serving spoonfuls (2/3C?) shortening. Crumble until it can form a ball that falls apart at the slightest touch - just like making the shortcake biscuits, you want to coat all the fat with the dry ingredients but you don't want to overwork it or it will be tough (as my daughter said - "At least we know Hon wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty!")
Beat 1 egg (and maybe 1/2 tsp vanilla if you like) with 3/4C or so of milk, stir into dry ingredients. This will be a fairly thick batter, you can thin it slightly with more milk if necessary but you don't want to be able to pour it, you'll plop it by big spoonfuls into the pan. Stir in about 1C of blueberries (preferably home-grown or wild).
Spread in pan (jelly roll, rimmed cookie sheet, 9x13 or 8x8, depending on how cake-like you want it - Hon's was more like a bar cookie, Em's was like a coffee cake).
Top with crumb topping made by cutting 1 stick of butter into 1C of flour and 1C of sugar sifted together with app. 2 tsp (to taste) of ground cinnamon (half this amount is plenty for the smaller pan sizes).
Bake for 20-30 minutes (again, depending on pan size) in preheated 375 oven. Serve warm with vanilla (or my husband's favorite, black raspberry) ice cream or cold the next day. If it lasts that long!
