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I tend to bake when I stay at my sister’s house while visiting the family in Calgary. We’ll get up first thing in the morning and bake Flapper Pie – the catalyst for an entire cookbook, as it turned out! – or coffee cake, like this one.
We love digging through old cookbooks and family recipes, and this recipe for Saskatoon coffee cake is a meld of two recipes that we found. One recipe had a great topping, the other one, not so much.
Of course, being the prairie girls that we are, it goes without saying that while we don’t have blueberries on hand, we always have frozen Saskatoon berries. Oh yes, there’s always a bag or two in the freezer, doled out slowly and carefully for the next 6 months until it’s time to forage a new batch of berries and freeze them again to last us through the winter.
The other trick we tried with this Saskatoon coffee cake is putting the berries in the middle, in one lovely layer. It worked like a charm – as you can see- to keep the berries from ending up on the bottom of the cake.
Coffee cakes are so dense that every time I make them I am reminded why they are called coffee cakes. You absolutely need a cup of hot coffee to help wash down these heavy, thick crumbed cakes.
There’s just nothing like them with a cup of coffee for breakfast. Which is exactly how my sister and I ate it. Coffee, cake and a side of scrambled eggs for protein, which of course, made it healthy, right?
There’s nothing like a hot, fresh Saskatoon coffee cake for anytime of day, to be honest.
We also figured that a Saskatoon coffee cake simply screamed out for walnuts on top. I love a coffee cake that has a thick, buttery crumbly layer of streusel on top and with walnuts? Even better.
The problem with this Saskatoon coffee cake is that I am SO READY FOR SPRING.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout that. What’s really crazy is that we’ve had a great winter so far – it didn’t really snow until the very beginning of December – and only a few really deep cold spells. However it doesn’t take long for me to be ready to see the green grass and start planting my garden again. I’m already thrifting planters and pots in anticipation of the coming summer, I have so many plans for this year, seeing how we are home for most of the summer.
I’m ready for strawberries and Saskatoon berry picking and my garden and camping…
Ok, I’ll stop before I depress myself that we are still in January.
Happy baking babes!
Love you more than summer,
Karlynn
Saskatoon Coffee Cake
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cups Saskatoons, blueberries or choice of fruit
Topping
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/2 cup walnuts or choice of nuts
Instructions
- Mix flour, baking powder and salt in bowl with whisk.
- Mix sugar, melted butter,egg vanilla and milk.
- Blend the dry ingredients into the milk mixture.
- Pour 2/3 of the batter into a 8X8 or 9X9 pan.
- Spoon the berries evenly onto the batter.
- Pour remaining batter over the berries and spread to cover evenly.
- For the topping: add all ingredients together and sprinkle over the batter
- Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted comes out clean. Cover halfway through if the top browns too quickly
Nutrition
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Holly says
I agree a bit more care/editing could have been made with the writing of this recipe, however it was not hard to understand the second mention of milk should have said “salt”. It also does not mention how long to cook it. The pictures show evidence of purple showing through the topping, yet there is no explanation for this either. Therefore I am assuming some berries were sprinkled on the topping or some were added just under the topping. I have not made this recipe yet, but will do so today. I hope it will taste yummy.
Alice Jeffers says
Hi, some instructions confused me 2 parts say mix milk. And I don’t understand when to cover and when to add the topping.
So I just put everything together and baked for 35 minutes uncovered and it was delicious. Ate it with ice cream.
Grace shelton says
Just made this cake with fresh saskatoon and it was so yummy
Thank you
Patricia says
Would frozen saskatoons work also? Or only fresh?
April says
This was AMAZING! MAde it with blueberries – fab!!!
ACanadianFoodie says
Though you write charming stories and beautiful recipes, Gramsy is usually too busy to stop by…. these days. Yet, When I read the first two lines about you and your sister digging through old cookbooks and baking together, it just made my heart ache – so I popped over to look at your lovely photos and read about your sister time because I miss my sister.
I would have loved to have had a sister who would just bake with me. That you have a sister who loves to do these kinds of things – well, you are simply blessed.
I am, as well, but in different ways… the sad thing is, my sister and I had so very little in common and I yearned for more time with her every day she was alive. Now she is gone, that hasn’t changed. What has changed, is my thankfulness that my own daughters enjoy a lot of sister time. They are also very different from one another, but come together over their shared experiences and other like-minded pursuits.
So, this coffee cake would represent so much to me if I baked it with my sister, as I am sure it does to you. Here’s to your “Sister Love Saskatoon Coffee Cake”. Yummy!
🙂
Valerie