Blueberry cluster
Yes, it’s blueberry pickin’ season in the Ozarks. Time to head down to Brandywine Blueberry Farm in Rolla, where you can pick to your heart’s content—but only on Tuesdays and Saturdays, 7:30 a.m. till noon. This day trip makes a great outing for kids paired with a restful stop at Maramec State Park in nearby St. James.
My granddaughter at last year’s blueberry pickin’ at Brandywine Blueberry Farm.
With blueberries becoming more plentiful, I plan on baking an old favorite this weekend: Blueberry Boy Bait. There are lots of funky names for desserts using the healthy fruit: buckle, crumble, betty, grunt. The one I’m making goes back to 1954, the year I was married and first heard of the recipe. That year a teenager won second-place in the Pillsbury Junior Bake-Off with a cake called Blueberry Boy Bait. Supposedly boys found the dessert irresistible, thus the cute name.
Blueberry Boy Bait. (Photo: Cook’s Country)
More recently, America’s Test Kitchen put their wizards to updating the old cake. They replaced the shortening with butter, upped the amount of berries, added another egg, and co-mingled brown sugar with the regular sugar. All worthwhile improvements.
Blueberry Boy Bait
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1 teaspoon
- 1 Tbs. baking powder
- 1 tsp. table salt
- 16 Tbs. unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (see note below)
Topping
- 1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (see note below)
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.
- Whisk 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining 1 teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.
- For the topping: Scatter blue-berries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.) Serves 12.
- Kitchen Note: If using frozen blueberries, do not let them thaw, as they will turn the batter a blue-green color.
