An easy summer cake: berry streussel

It seems to me that there is a "wave" well under way amongst my ragazzi. Suddenly, more people are turning away dessert than eating it, watching their portion sizes, eating more carefully. Is this a sign that we are all realizing that we are getting older? I wonder. Other ideas?

It's certainly not a bad thing to eat better, but let's not "throw the baby out with the bath water." I want to present a cake that, let's face it, is not a nutritional wonder. Far from it. But it's easy. It exploits the bounty that is upon us now, and - God, do I hate this word - it is "versatile." You can change things in it , as I shall explain.
Now, you would not know that from the doctrinaire recipe I read, which also said that this recipe took 3.5 hours from start to finish. Lemme tell you gang, if you are not out of the kitchen with this cake in 90 minutes, hang up your apron. And most of that time is going to be spent with the cake baking. You will have the cake in the oven in 20 minutes. I promise.

About an hour before you plan to bake, cut a stick of unsalted butter in half, and leave half of it on a counter in your kitchen, the other half in the fridge. And preheat your oven to 350. Now do your prep. And BOY is this easy. First, pick a fruit. I made it with blueberries, but you can choose whatever you like. I meant that - ANYTHING you like. Just have four heaping cups of it. Put it aside for now.

Next, let's mix the cake batter. That will take a cup of unbleached, all purpose flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of baking soda, and half a teaspoon of salt. Put that in a bowl, on the side.

Next, you need half a cup of dairy. My recipe called for sour cream. Don't have it? Use yogurt. Don't have that? Use buttermilk. Don't have that? Use milk that you've stirred a tablespoon of white vinetar into. Add a flavoring to it. Which one? That depends on your fruit. For blueberries, use vanilla. For cherries, I would use almond. So, too, with peaches, nectarines or plums. For raspberries, I might use a mint extract. Bananas? Use some cocoa. See what I mean? Play with combinations, but don't use too much of the flavor. Stir a half to one teaspoon of it into the dairy, and put that aside.

Our final pre-prep will be making the streussel topping. Easy as can be. Mix a cup of flour with three tablespoons of brown sugar and a half to one teaspoon of a spice. Again, play with the fruit that is the major component. For blueberries? Cinnamon. For cherries, maybe grated orange peel. Peaches and other stone fruits? I'd go with nutmeg. Orange with cranberries. Cinnamon with plums, maybe, and also with apples. Improvise. Take that half a stick of butter out of the fridge , break it into cubes and work it into the flour with your fingers. You want clumps, so don't worry about doing it too fine.

OK, we have bowls containing fruit, batter, dairy and streussel topping. "What ain't we got? WE AINT GOT CAKE." Well, we're about to. In a bowl comine 3/4 cup of granulated sugar with the softened half stick of butter, and stir it, or blend it, until it's really light and fluffly. This will take about five minutes. Blend in a large egg, stir it all around. Now, take that dairy, and the cake mixture, and add them alternately, three times. Stir each one thoroughly until adding the next one. When that's done, stir in your fruit. And you have your cake.

Prep the pan by either greasing a 9x9 pan (if you're going to serve it in the pan), or by lining a pan with two very large sheets of aluminum foil, greasing those, and then flouring them, dumping out the excess flour. If you do it that way, you can take the cake out of the pan to serve elsewhere.

Pour the cake batter into the pan, pour half of the topping over it, and then put it in the oven for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, add the remaining topping, and bake another 25 minutes.

The cake will be nice and firm, and you can serve it in as little as fifteen minutes after you take it out, although it's better if you let it rest for an hour.

Don't refrigerate this, although you may not have to worry about leftovers. It's really good. I can eat this whole thing, and if you look at the ingredients, you'll see the most prevalent one is clearly the cake. With berries, you get a very lovely, almost "jam like" texture on the bottom. With other, larger fruit, you'll get something softer, but equally wonderful.

And know what? You have a bout a dozen recipes, AT LEAST. Not just one.

Go to town. Make a few cakes. Share them with your friends. And enjoy something sweet. Tell em Annalena told you you could.