Jan 17th, 2008
Blueberry Kuchen
Last August, my parents came out to visit me in San Francisco. One of our excursions was to the Serramonte Farmer's Market, our favorite farmers' market for fresh fruit. My mom was very excited when she saw the fabulous blueberry vendor. She immediately bought a couple of quarts of blueberries and made three blueberry kuchens for us and friends.
The kuchen was simple to make and it was absolutely delicious. Hungry Bear got the recipe from my mom, but sadly, we didn't make a kuchen before blueberry season ended. We thought we'd have to wait until summer before finding high quality, reasonably priced blueberries again.
A few days ago, we were trying to survive the craziness at Costco and stumbled upon big packages of fresh blueberries. Hungry Bear declared that we should buy some blueberries and make a kuchen! It turns out the blueberries are from Chile and the growing season down south is November to March. So much for eating local, as the blueberries looked too good to turn down, and we needed a blueberry fix badly!
We searched our email archives and found the blueberry kuchen recipe my mom sent and made it yesterday for dessert. It was really easy to make and only required fifteen minutes of prep time and forty or so minutes of baking. Our kuchen turned out great with a nice golden crust and a not too sweet, jam-like blueberry filling. Fresh blueberries were added on top of the filling and each bite of the kuchen sent us to blueberry heaven!
Blueberry Kuchen Recipe
SND Note: In step two of the recipe, a sugar, flour and cinnamon mixture is sprinkled over the blueberries, which leaves a few pockets of undissolved sugar on top of the filling after baking. Next time, we would mix the sugar, flour and cinnamon with the 3 cups of blueberries before adding them on top of the dough.
Ingredients:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter, slightly softened and cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon white vinegar
5 cups (725 grams) fresh blueberries
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C). In medium bowl, mix 1 cup flour, salt and 2 tablespoons sugar. Cut in butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle with vinegar and shape into dough. With lightly floured fingers, press dough into 9-inch springform pan about 1/4 inch thickness on bottom, less thick and 1 inch high around sides. Add 3 cups blueberries on top.
2) Mix remaining 2 tablespoon flour, 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle evenly over blueberries. Bake on the middle rack for 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling bubbles. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack. Sprinkle with remaining 2 cups blueberries. Cool for at least 30 minutes. Run a pairing knife around the crust edge to separate from the pan before opening springform. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Makes 8 servings
Update February 11, 2008: The first picture in this post won the DMBLGIT Feb 2008 Edibility Award! We are very honored to win the award. It's the first time the blog has won anything! You like us, you really like us!
17 Comments on “Blueberry Kuchen”
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DMBLGIT February 2008: The Roundup
[...] Each picture was scored in three categories: edibility, originality, and aesthetics. The photo receiving the highest total score in each of those categories, without being an overall winner, is the specific category winner. The winner in the edibility category is Blueberry Kuchen from Chuck of Sunday Nite Dinner. [...]
I was completely unprepared for the spurt of drool that emerged from my mouth because of your pictures. AWESOME. Great way to start the day. :)
I’ll save this recipe for next summer, when the Maine blueberries are in season and available in our Rhode Island farmers markets. Yum!
There are no blueberries (no, not ever) in the country where I’m living now.
So for every really, really, amazing blueberry recipe I see (and this one certainly is), I find myself saying - could I do that with strawberries??
Could I?
A. Grace, sorry for causing the drool, but I’m glad we started your day off well.
Lydia, ah… Maine blueberries. I just recently learned that Maine produces 25% of the blueberries for North America and is the largest blueberry producer in the world. I had no idea. I need to partake in a Maine blueberry festival one of these days!
Jessica, substituting strawberries for blueberries can be done in this recipe. Strawberries tend to cook down very quickly, so the size of the berries and the cooking time may need to be adjusted to achieve a brown crust and bubbling filling at the same time.
I would recommend just halving the strawberries for the filling part and check on the kuchen after 30 minutes of baking. If you try it with strawberries, let me know how it turns out.
An absolutely gorgeous dessert! I will add this to my favorite fruit desserts category!
Oh. My. Buhjezzus. That looks good. I think I’m going to cave and buy Chilean blueberries as well!
I think those pictures are blueberry porn. I want a slice right now! Just gorggggeous.
I love that photo slideshow thing you have!
I made this recipe tonight and it was outrageously good. Costco has had giant delicious blueberries from Chile for a few months now. It turned out just as beautifully as your pictures. I’m excited to try it in mini springform pans for company. It’s an easy recipe to prepare the night of and have it be wonderful and warm. The crust was the perfect compliment to the berries.
yum. that looks amazing.
i love blueberries.
This looks so delish! I’ll be trying this recipe out myself soon!
awesome!! that looks really pretty:)
This is similar to my grandmother’s recipe. It’s even better if you use 2 tablespoons of Quick Tapioca as thickener instead of the 2 tablespoons flour.
WOW! I don’t even like blueberries, but may I please have a piece anyway?!
Congratulations on winning the Feb. 2008 DMBLGIT edibility category!!
congrats - you certainly deserve the edibility award for this one. Make me want to run out and buy blueberries!