Cherry Blueberry Coffee Cake
It’s stone fruit season! I absolutely love stone fruits. This season is far and away my favorite time of year. It starts with cherries in May, then continues with apricots, peaches and plums all the way through October. I can never get enough. I buy as many pounds as I can and then make a variety of recipes from appetizers to entrées to desserts. While I love using stone fruits in savory dishes, my favorite is hands down as a dessert.
I’ve included stone fruits in brownies, bars, muffins, pies and cakes, but I always have trouble deciding what to make. While my favorites are bars and pies, I do love a good cake. And while cake is often served in the afternoon or evening, nothing beats a delicious coffee cake first thing in the morning, especially when it’s served alongside a nice, strong cup of coffee.
I’ve always been a coffee cake fan. I mean, let’s be honest, aren’t coffee cake and doughnuts the main reason we go to those 9 am meetings? It’s certainly not for the weekly updates. While doughnuts are great, there’s just something about a moist coffee cake covered with a sugar crumble that makes me smile, especially when there’s fresh fruit inside. I’m not talking about a gooey, sugary compote like those store bought coffee cakes. I’m talking about real, fresh fruit that bursts with flavor when you bite into it. Those are the kind of cakes I love. The kind where the natural sugars from the fruit provide that extra dash of sweetness. The kind that maybe even add a little color to the cake, making it look extra special. Sure, I may drizzle a sweet glaze over the cake for aesthetics, but it’s the fruit in the cake that makes all the difference. These are the coffee cakes I go for. These are the ones that I’ll make over and over again.
While a plain brown sugar coffee cake is delicious and easy, like all desserts, I want mine to have a little something extra. Something like those stone fruits I was talking about. You can use any fruit you like from apples and pears in the fall to peaches and strawberries in the spring. But since it is stone fruit season, I used cherries. Cherries are one of my favorite stone fruits. I absolutely love them! But they’re never around for very long. That’s why I always stock up and then pit and freeze them. That way I can enjoy cherries year round.
This coffee cake would be delicious with just cherries. But I had a pint of blueberries in the fridge, so I combined the two. Cherries are great on their own but I love mixing them. Combining different fruit flavors makes for a more interesting cake. So, I’ll mix berries or stone fruits or add some citrus to get a little sour with my sweet. It just makes a better cake because there’s more depth. But if you only have cherries or just a single pint of blueberries, one fruit is totally fine. It’ll still taste amazing! And since there’s fresh fruit in the cake as opposed to a sugary compote, that means you don’t have to feel guilty about having cake for breakfast. Right?
Ingredients
- For the Cake
- 2 cups flour
- 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/4 cup greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1 cup cherries, pitted and chopped
- 1 cup blueberries
- For the Crumble
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
Instructions
- Make the cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9X9 baking pan with parchment paper.
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl and set aside.
- Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy, 2 - 3 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at time, beating after each addition. Add the vanilla.
- Mix in the yogurt and the dry ingredients, alternating between the two, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Don't over mix.
- Fold in the cherries and blueberries until just combined. Spread the batter in the prepared pan.
- Make the crumble
- Using your hands, combine the butter, flour and sugar together in a small bowl until it looks crumbly. Sprinkle over the top of the cake.
- Bake for 35 - 40 minutes or until a toothpick, when inserted, comes out clean. Cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes. Slice and serve with a cup of your favorite coffee.
