Weekend baking: Blueberry buckle

Monday is National Coffee Cake Day. Go figure.

When I hear coffee cake, my automatic word-association reflexes fly to one of my late grandmother's recipes, one that is forever linked to my grandparents' lake cabin.

Sugar Lake was a magical place in my childhood. It's practically a far-ring suburb today – it's about 10 miles south of Annandale, Minn. -- but in the pre-I-94 era the journey felt like a never-ending drive from my family's suburban Minneapolis home.

Grandma Gay had a Sugar Lake ritual, at least during blueberry season. She would alleviate her guests' car weariness by greeting them with a slice or two of what I later discovered was an easy-to-prepare buckle, still warm from the oven.

Although it came off as an extra-special treat, her blueberry buckle was cloaked in practicality, using ingredients that were always on hand at the lake; no running into town for the sour cream or other coffee-cake staples that, inevitably, end up as a shopping list afterthought.

My guess is that, after countless summers, Grandma pulled her blueberry buckle together from memory. Fortunately, in the late 1970s, my sister Cheri thought to ask Grandma for the recipe. Treasure, right? I still have the card, written using a thick Flair pen, in Cheri's tidy high-school cursive.

In honor of this momentous national holiday, I baked Grandma's buckle this morning (using frozen berries discovered in the back of my freezer, picked last summer at Rush River Produce in Maiden Rock, Wis., pictured above), and our kitchen is perfumed with the loveliest scent.

SUGAR LAKE BLUEBERRY BUCKLE

Serves 9.

Note: I suggest adding a teaspoon vanilla extract to the batter when incorporating the milk, and maybe include a 3/4 cup toasted chopped pecans to the topping, two ingredients that probably weren't regulars in the Olsens' 1960s cabin pantry.

For cake:

2 c. flour, plus extra for pan

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pan

3/4 c. sugar

1 egg

1/2 c. whole milk, at room temperature

For topping:

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c. (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces

To prepare cake: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x9-inch baking pan.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder and set aside.

In a large bowl of an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg and beat until thoroughly combined. Reduce speed to low and alternately add flour mixture and milk in thirds, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until just combined. Carefully fold blueberries into batter and pour batter into prepared baking pan.