This recipe is very popular among the visitors to our summer bakery, but it really shines when a cake is needed that will stand up to being sent through the mail! Island kids off to school on the mainland love it, and their roommates and teammates love it even more! It seems lots of people get chocolate chip cookies from home, but not everybody gets Maine blueberry cake. This keeps well, if wrapped, for several days, and freezes nicely.

The good folks at Penobscot Island Air, and the crew of the Maine State Ferry when they make their occasional runs to Matinicus, are quite pleased if somebody slips them a few pieces of this cake. I often make it when I want to say “thank you” to somebody for a helping hand, or if I need to make something to bring to a potluck supper or a meeting on the mainland, when I have to do the baking a day or two ahead. I’ve taken it camping with great success, sent it as a Hanukkah gift to a friend of my daughter’s who lives in Nevada, left it for the diesel mechanic at the powerhouse, and seen it wolfed down at Book Group gatherings.

I got the recipe from one of those old “community cookbooks,” and other than preferring the flavor of butter to the original margarine (or “oleo,”) I haven’t changed a thing. This is a basic crumb cake recipe, with no secret ingredients or unexpected touches…maybe that’s why everybody likes it and why it’s so adaptable. It’s very good with some strawberries added in along with the blueberries (that makes it look like a “Fourth of July” coffee cake, in fact).

Do use frozen blueberries if you have them; don’t thaw them first. Blueberry juice turns the batter a sort of grayish-purple that isn’t too pretty. If you have fresh berries, mix them in gently to minimize smashed fruit. I recommend the real Maine wild berries for this recipe; fat high-bush berries may not look as nice.The single (one-egg) recipe makes an 8×8 pan (a foil pan of that size fits into a priority mail box). The same size batch will also make two 4½ x 7½ loaves, just right for gifts. Twice the recipe makes a 9×13 pan, and three times the recipe makes a large lasagna pan, from which I cut the generous cubes I sell at my bakery on Matinicus Island.

This May, while watching the migrating Baltimore orioles devour the oranges we’d stuck in the bushes outside the kitchen window, I decided that those oranges looked good and I wanted to make something orange-y. The addition of two generous tablespoons of fresh grated orange rind (zest) to the basic recipe plus a few walnuts, pecans, almonds, or hazelnuts in the streusel topping makes a delicious orange “tea cake.” The orioles soon moved on, but I think that orange cake variation will remain a standard in my kitchen!

I have a walnut tree in my yard, which yielded a lot of nuts last fall, so it’s fun to put a few home-grown walnuts in my baking. The tree was a wedding present 20 years ago, and we had no idea it would survive, not to mention yield, but it seems to be “in the lee” enough to manage.

 Blueberry (or any kind of) Coffee Cake
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and lightly oil a pan to fit the multiple of this recipe you are using. The one-egg batch makes an 8×8 or 9×9 square, or two smallish loaves; the recipe works well doubled or tripled.
 
¼ cup (half a stick) of butter
¾ cup sugar
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
 ¾ cup milk
 2 cups flour
 ¾ teaspoon salt
 2½ teaspoons baking powder
 2 cups blueberries (frozen hard works well) OR 2 Tablespoons orange zest OR any other berries, nuts, flavorings you like.

Crumb topping:
¼ cup butter
1/3 cup flour
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Cut this together with a pastry blender or fork, leaving some lumps. Add nuts or chopped candied ginger if desired.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg, vanilla, and milk, mixing thoroughly but do not overbeat. Stop when all combined. Add in blueberries, orange zest, nuts, or flavorings.

Pour the batter into the pan, getting it all with a rubber spatula. Put the crumb topping on, and bake for 1 hour for the 4 ½ x 7 ½ loaves, longer for larger pans (probably an hour and 20 minutes for most). This does take a while to bake, especially if you have used frozen berries. A toothpick or knife inserted in the middle should come out with no sticky batter…it may not be perfectly “clean,” with the berries, but that’s ok. Delicious served hot– or cool, double-wrap, pack in a box with pages of the local newspaper or the Sunday funnies, and mail!

Eva Murray first came to Matinicus as the teacher in the island's one-room school. She is a freelance writer, an EMT, runs a small seasonal bakery from her home during the summer, is married to the island's electrician and has raised two children on Matinicus.