Recipe: Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cakes {Kathy Wakile}

A delicious little grab-and-go coffee cake just bursting with blueberry flavor.

Sometimes new favorite recipes come from the most unlikely of sources.

This is that.

Kathy Wakile is a semi-frequent cast member of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. She is not one of the loud, brash, table flipping members. Rather, she is quite the opposite, and usually the peace maker amongst all the troublemakers. Known for her delicious homemade desserts, a year or two ago, she turned that passion into a business and started producing her own dessert line, offering it in both retail locations and direct from her web site. And just recently, she introduced a new cookbook, Indulge. And this recipe was recently excerpted in People magazine.

And here we are.

It caught my eye because I’m always looking for a new grab-and-go item for the kids’ for breakfast. These Banana Chocolate Chip Espresso Muffins from the Brooklyn bakery, Baked, have been in regular rotation for a few years, but I like to change it up every now and again and this time, it came by way of these Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cakes.

Or Exploding Blueberry Muffins, and I prefer to call them.

One of my gripes about muffin recipes is that I can never seem to get them to dome the way they do if you buy them somewhere. So when I saw them rising, and keeping their shape, I knew we were onto something good.

They came together in under ten minutes, mixing mostly traditional ingredients together, and baking in the oven for about 25 minutes. Once they come out, you are rewarded with simply gorgeous muffins. Beautifully domed, and full and plump, they were filled to capacity with blueberries, pretty much guaranteeing a burst blueberry with every bite. And then the little bit of crispy streusel topping was just the lily gilding it needed.

My favorite way to enjoy them? As with all muffins. Split in half, toasted, with a light smear of butter.

I packaged up a bunch and shared with the bus stop parents this morning.

I would say that Monday was off to a good start, but it went sharply downhill from there.

But we’ll always have these muffins.

Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cakes
Recipe courtesy of Kathy Wakile and Indulge

Ingredients

3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (I skipped)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed (I used a full package of Bird’s Eye frozen)
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 16 oz container of sour cream (I used light)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375. Combine brown sugar with walnuts and cinnamon; reserve 1/2 cup. Toss remaining mixture with blueberries.
2. Beat butter and sugar at medium speed in bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Stir together sour cream and vanilla. Stir together flour and next three ingredients. Add flour mixture to batter alternately with sour cream mixture, beating just until blended.
4. Spoon half of the batter evenly into 24 lightly greased and floured muffin cups. Sprinkle half of berry mixture evenly over batter. Spoon remaining batter evenly over berries. Top with remaining berries and brown sugar mixture.
5. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool coffee cakes in pans for 10 minutes. Remove to wire racks, serve warm or at room temperature.