Sourdough Blueberry Buckle

This sourdough blueberry buckle is a tender, streusel-topped coffee cake that’s bursting with juicy blueberries (you can use fresh or frozen) and a subtle tang from your sourdough starter. Use either active sourdough starter or discard for a delicious, no-waste treat perfect for breakfast or dessert!

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Discard

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 45

Total Time 1 5

Servings serves

Calories 373kcal

Equipment

Baking Pan (9" x 9" square pan - see notes)

Ingredients

Streusel Topping

60 g Granulated Sugar (can use white sugar)
60 g Brown Sugar
50 g All Purpose Flour
1 g Cinnamon (approx. 1 teaspoon - can add more if you like)
60 g Butter (cubed, cold)

Cake Batter

Wet Ingredients

60 g Butter (softened or melted - see notes)
1 Egg (use 2 if your eggs are on the small side)
150 g Sourdough Starter (or sourdough starter discard)
150 g Milk (or can use buttermilk)
5 g Vanilla Extract (optional)

Dry Ingredients

200 g All Purpose Flour
10 g Baking Powder
5 g Salt
160 g White Sugar
1 Lemon (zest only)
300 g Blueberries (fresh or frozen - see notes)

Instructions

Before you start, preheat your oven to 200C (390F) and lightly butter or spray with oil a 9" x 9" cake pan.

Streusel Topping

Add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, all purpose flour and cinnamon to a small mixing bowl. Mix these together until well combined.
Now add the cold, cubed butter to the top of this mixture and use your finger tips to rub the dry mixture into the butter until it resembles bread crumbs (it's ok if there are some clumps of butter still). Set this aside while you make the cake batter. If your kitchen is warm, pop this streusel topping in the freezer.

Cake Batter

Now mix the wet ingredients together in a bowl. So add the softened butter, egg, sourdough starter, milk and vanilla extract to a bowl or batter jug and whisk until well combined. Set this aside.
Next, combine the dry ingredients, excluding the blueberries, in a bowl and mix until well combined.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together using a spatula until a light cake batter is formed. Set this aside.
Now if you're using frozen blueberries (as you can see I am in the photos) you'll need to toss these in around 20g of flour before you use them. Do this now and then pop them aside while you assemble the cake.

Assemble the Cake

Now take the cake pan you prepared earlier and spread half the cake batter on the base. Then spread half the blueberries across the cake batter. Spread the rest of the cake batter over the blueberries and then add the rest of the blueberries over this so you should have now used up all of the batter and blueberries.
Sprinkle all of the streusel topping over the top of the blueberries and batter and then place the sourdough blueberry buckle into the oven and bake for around 45 minutes at 200C (390F). You'll know the sourdough buckle is done when the streusel topping is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.
You can serve this cake warm straight out of the pan. To do this, I just a lasagne server to cut and lever the warm buckle out. If you want to slice it evenly, I find it's best to wait until it's cool and then remove from the pan and slice with a serrated knife.

Notes

Butter - I've used salted butter as always but you could use unsalted if you prefer. When adding softened butter to the wet ingredients it can look a little weird. If this freaks you out, just melt the butter. Don't worry though, if the butter goes a bit clumpy it will cook up just fine!

Blueberries - I've chosen to use frozen blueberries because it was the easier option for me at the time of developing and testing this recipe. I have tested the recipe several times with frozen blueberries and had no issues. I have tested the recipe also with fresh blueberries and found it works just as well. You don't need to toss the fresh blueberries in flour before adding them. If you prefer a heavier blueberry texture, you could add as many as 400g of blueberries. I like to have more cake than blueberries, but if you want to you can increase the blueberries.

Baking Dish - you can really use any oven proof dish you like. I've used a 9" x 9" baking pan but you can use anything, round, square, rectangle as long as it's not too big. If you want the cake to be a bit deeper, I'd recommend using something around 8" x 8".

Nutrition