Every summer, I look forward to spending a few days at the cottage of my grandparents in the Central Bohemia/Slapy region. It is surrounded by forests and an amazing wavy landscape. We often spend most of the day by the river having a good swim and fun, but in the mornings or when it’s not so hot, we go to the forest for long walks and blueberry picking. Some of these forests are full of blueberry bushes and since we were kids, we have been enjoying this blueberry hunting. It is actually a dirty job when you can’t come out of the forest without purple hands! 😀 Some of us also had a purple tongue even though we knew we should not be eating these without washing or cooking them but you know, kids vs. rules… At the end of the day, our mum or grandma made some delicious stuff with blueberries, such as blueberry jam, dumplings, or they baked this so much loved and legendary blueberry cake. Again nostalgia comes up when I think of it…
I have never seen wild blueberries in Belgium before. But maybe I never came to the right place. We are now starting to discover Limburg where we moved last year and last week when my mum was here, we made a trip to one of the closest pine forests and found blueberry bushes already at the entrance. Adeline was sleeping so we picked a few, she was still sleeping so we continued. In the end, she slept for more than one hour and we ended with around 1 kilogram of blueberries! There were many blueberries available, it almost seemed to us like no Belgians really do this, picking forest fruit, or not many people were aware of this spot. We even had to google whether it was actually legal to pick forest fruits in Belgium (it is but in the neighboring Netherlands not!).
When Adeline woke up, I let her walk a little in the forest and she starred at my mum’s blue hands and couldn’t understand what we were doing down on our knees in the bushes there! 🙂 We then took direction back to the car as it was already late and we didn’t want to meet any wild pigs. The other day, my mum and me we made the legendary blueberry cake from this forest treasure, the one she always makes for us in the cottage. The other day in the morning while everybody was still sleeping, I took my camera and made these few shots so that I can now publish the recipe here.
You will love this blueberry cake! It is a smooth and tasty yeast cake with wild blueberries and crumble topping which all together tastes marvellous! Remember, you can use the cake base and crumble with other types of fruit as well – red/white currant, apricot, pear (+wallnuts, anise, and cinnamon – delish!)… your choice! Just remember that this recipe makes two cakes in the size of a general baking tray (Czech portions, I knooow! :-D), so if you want only one, make half of it! If you make the recipe, feel free to share your pictures on Instagram and tag @1001voyagesgourmands so that I can also share your pictures!
250-300 ml lukewarm whole milk (depending on the absorption of the flour used) Crumble the fresh yeast in a small bowl, add 1 tbsp of sugar and mix well with a fork until you get kind of a liquid pasta consistency. Add half of the lukewarm milk (about 100-120 ml; the temperature should be between 25-35°C), sprinkle with a spoon of flour, and allow the yeast mixture to double the volume within 15 minutes on a warm place (no direct lightning!). In the bowl of a robot, sift the flour, sugar and salt. Add the lemon zest and nutmeg. Once the yeast mixture is ready, create a hole in the flour mixture and pour it in. Add the rest of the milk, egg, and melted (and cooled) butter. Let it work out the dough for about 10 minutes, then cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let it stand on a warm place in a warm place for one hour so that it doubles the volume (if you don't have any warm place around or rising program in the oven, yon you can also fill a bigger bowl with warm water and place the bowl with the dough in it). In the meantime, prepare the crumble. Sift together flour with sugar and cinnamon, add cold butter in cubes and work out with your fingers to a crumble consistency. Cover and store in a fridge in the meantime so that it doesn't soften. Once the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 160°C fan. From this dose, you will make two cakes so you need to prepare two baking trays. Divide the dough into two equal parts and roll out each part of the dough on a parchment paper into a rectangle copying the size of your baking tray. Transfer each to the baking tray, smear the endings with egg white mixed with 1 tbsp. milk, fill each with 500 g blueberries mixed with 1 tbsp. sugar, and sprinkle with half of the crumble. Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until golden. From this dose, you will make 2 cakes.
Ingredients
42 g fresh yeast
500 g all-purpose flour (the best is to combine T530 and T400 if you can find!)
70 g crystal sugar
10 g vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp. lemon zest from a non-treated lemon
1/2 ground nutmeg
80 g melted butter
1 egg
1 egg white with 1 tbsp. milk for smear
Filling: 1 kg washed wild blueberries + 2 tbsp. crystal sugar
Crumble: 200 g flour (T450), 100 g butter, 100 g crystal sugar, 2 tsp. ground cinnamonInstructions
Notes
