Blueberry Muffin Cake
Zoë François is the author of Zoë Bakes Cakes and even though her name is French, she’s an American cake baker. Known for a series of books on making Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, as well as books that continue that theme for making pizza, flatbread, holidays breads, and gluten-free breads, Zoë has finally turned her talents as a pastry chef to cakes. After growing up in a commune where the closest she got to sugar was a raisin, Zoë discovered Twinkies, which awakened her to the wonderful world of sweets and started selling homemade cookies from a cart in college, which eventually led to a job decorating cakes at Ben & Jerry’s, since she admitted to me on an Instagram Live video I did with her, that she didn’t excel at scooping ice cream.
I had a similar job scooping ice cream at a very busy shop while in college. Challenges included a persistent stressed muscle near my upper arm, which didn’t get better the more ice cream I scooped. There were customers who’d order one scoop, but ask me to make it “one really big scoop” because they didn’t want to pay the extra 50¢ for two scoops. And people paying for a $1.30 cone of ice cream with a hundred and thirty pennies, maybe with a few very thin dimes tossed in, which they’d line up on the stainless steel counter between us, which were nearly impossible to pick up with wet, sticky hands.
(You tell me if I was a brat by holding their ice cream cone in the other hand, while they cooled their heels waiting for me to pick up each individual coin, one-by-one, with the other – finally handing their cone over only after the last coin was pried off the counter and put in the register, which the owner monitored like a hawk. Another employee, if people were rude to her, would carefully balance – but not pack – the ice cream scoop delicately on top of the cone, so when they went outside to lick it, it would topple off. The moral of the story, as I often advise, is to be nice to people serving you food.)
Zoë is a lot nicer than me, and because of that, has her own tv show (which is why you’re still stuck with me here), but is completely down-to-earth and her book reflects that. It starts off with Basic Cakes, which anyone can master, like a chocolate/vanilla Marble Cake and Lemon Curd Pound Cake with tangy lemon curd swirled in, and festooned with homemade candied lemon slices. Other chapters include Soaked Cakes, which help keeps cakes like Semolina-Walnut Cake with orange blossom and Cinco Leches cake, a riff on the Tres Leches Cake, moist and tasty.
Chapters continue on to layered and rolled cakes when you want to get a little fancier, and I have my eye squarely on the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with a rich layer of Devil’s Food Cake covered with peanut buttercream and dark chocolate ganache. There’s also a swanky (but not difficult) Bûche de Noël that celebrates the season with tahini and halvah, and the cover recipe, a Hot Chocolate Layer Cake with toasted marshmallows piled on top. You can probably understand why I want to make them all!
Having been a baking instructor, Zoë includes a number of step-by-step photos in Zoë Bakes Cakes, but you don’t need much guidance to make the Blueberry Muffin Cake, which is where I started. It’s a simple butter-almond cake topped with a lot of blueberries and crowned with a streusel-ish topping, that sounded like something anyone would want to wake up to in the morning, or snack on in the afternoon.
Fresh blueberries aren’t very common in France, and when you do find them, they are small clamshell packages from somewhere else, with about a dozen berries lolling sadly around in them. However last summer when we were in the Languedoc, we went to a wonderful market in Olonzac that was mostly producteurs; people who grow their own fruits and vegetables, and make their own cheeses, press their own olive oils, cultivate honey from their hives, etc., where I spied a few baskets of fresh, local blueberries and bought them.
As someone who grew up in New England, I’ve had a lot of blueberries but those were the best blueberries I’ve ever had in my life. Unfortunately, the next week when we went back to get more, of course, the fellow had taken off on his own summer vacation. That said, if you live somewhere where blueberries are scarce and you’re unsure if you can get them, you can use frozen here.
One thing that is for sure, however, is regarding the age-old question of whether something is a muffin or cake. With this muffin cake, you don’t have to decide. You can have both!
Blueberry Muffin Cake
For the cake
- 1 cup (130g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- 1/2 cup (60g) almond flour
- 1/4 cup (40g) cornmeal, or whole-wheat (or all-purpose)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 10 tablespoons (5 ounces, 140g) unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (125ml) whole milk, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
- zest of one lemon
- 2 cups (330g) fresh blueberries, (see headnote if using frozen)
For the topping
- 1/2 cup (60g) chopped walnuts or pecans, (untoasted)
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- pinch kosher or sea salt
- 2 tablespoons (1 ounce, 30g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC).
- Butter an 8-inch (20cm) cake pan. Cut a circle of parchment paper about 16-inches (40cm) round. Smear it with softened butter, then line in the inside of the cake pan with it, buttered side up, so it covers the bottoms and up the sides of the pan, which you'll use later to help you lift out the cake. Press the paper up against the sides to flatten and smooth away any wrinkles.
- To make the cake, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, stir together the flour, sugar, almond flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and mix on medium speed until the butter is in small pieces, about the size of peas. Add the eggs, milk, vanilla, lemon zest, and mix just until the batter is smooth but avoid overmixing and overbeating it. (The batter can also be made in a food processor by mixing all the above ingredients together until smooth.)
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Cover the top with blueberries and use a butter knife to swirl the batter and blueberries together very slightly, just enough to distribute the blueberries and embed them a bit in the batter. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 45 minutes.
- While the cake is baking, make the topping by mixing the chopped nuts, cinnamon, sugar, and salt in a small bowl. Sprinkle the topping over the cake, place the pieces of butter in various places over the top of the cake, and continuing baking the cake until the cake feels just set in the center. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean, about 15 to 20 minutes. (The original recipe said 25 minutes but I found it baked faster so the time will vary.)
- Let the muffin cake cool completely in the pan, then remove it to serve.