Blueberry Buckle

What a great recipe to know about!  I served it to my book club during the height of blueberry season, so the blueberries tasted good to begin with.  But what is so remarkable is that they ended up tasting fresher and sweeter after being baked than they did to begin with.

Well, of course there is a small amount of sugar involved, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the blueberries tasted sweet.  But it is a small amount, and the 100 grams of superfine sugar somehow doesn't make the berries taste sugared.  It makes them taste naturally sweet.  It must be the combination of the sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and the fact that the berries aren't cooked--just stirred a few times--that makes them so delicious.

The batter topping is easy too--just a variation of a butter/sour cream cake.  It's a thin layer that is left to spread out on its own.  Just dab it on in a doughnut-shaped arrangement, and it will fill out to cover the berries.

I thought this was completely done, and the sides were starting to pull away from the pan, so I took it out pronto.  I was a little too quick, and there was some underdone cake batter in the middle.  By the time I realized this, I was starting to serve it and it was too late to do anything about it.  I remembered that lava cake is nothing but uncooked cake batter, so I decided that a little cake batter in a buckle would cause no harm.  And it didn't.

I should have been able to see the underdone section without even testing it.

I expect there will be a lot of conversation about what makes a buckle a buckle, and why it's called that in the first place.  This is what the Huffington Post has to say:  " A buckle layers a more traditional, cakey batter underneath the fruit.  As the dessert cooks, the cake rises around the fruit, which tries its best to sink to the bottom, making the whole thing buckle inwards."  Uh-oh.  That definition means that Rose's Blueberry Buckle is not really a buckle because the batter is on the top.
Does that mean it's a contra-buckle?  Or a reverse buckle?  Or an Elkcub?  And won't people get confused if you tell them you're serving them elk cub?

Whether you serve buckle or elk cub, I highly recommend serving it with excellent vanilla ice cream.