Mix it Up Monday: Blueberries

It's not all about dessert here at Salmon and Milk. Okay, it's mostly about dessert, but this week I have something different. Hollis and I went to pick blueberries on Thursday and while I won't call our 1.25lbs a bounty, it is way more than we will eat alone. So I sat out in search of blueberry recipes. I got this cookbook as a wedding shower gift (9 years ago!) and have not really used it. All of the recipes seemed way beyond anything I could accomplish, but it has beautiful pictures of Amish Country. When I looked at the book this week, I realized most of the recipes seemed doable. Yeah, progress! So Sunday night I made Wild Blueberry Bread. Of course I substituted farmed Georgia blueberries for the wild Maine ones called for, but really who would know. I also forgot to get a lemon, so no lemon zest. The only other change I made was to use 50/50 whole wheat/white flour. The cinnamon crumb topping turned out great and really adds a lot of flavor. I was able to put it together and get it in the oven in about 30 minutes. Let me know if you try it.
Wild Blueberry Bread
1/4c butter, softened
1/2c sugar
2 large eggs
2c unsifted all-purpose flour
2t baking powder
1/4t salt
1/3c milk
1t vanilla extract
2t grated lemon peel
1c wild Maine Blueberries (or farmed GA blueberries, whichever)

Cinnamon Mixture
1/3c sugar
1/4c brown sugar
1/4c all purpose flour
2t cinnamon
2T butter, cold, cut into bits

Bread: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and flour a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time. Add flour, baking powder, salt, milk, vanilla and lemon peel all at once. Stir until just combined. Fold in blueberries.
Cinnamon Mixture: In a small bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until crumbly.
Assembly: Turn 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle 1/2 of the cinnamon mixture on top. With a butter knife, swirl cinnamon mixture into batter about 1 inch deep. Spoon remaining batter on top. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon mixture and swirl lightly again. Bake until golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean, 55-60 minutes. Let cool in pan 5 min; turn onto cooling rack and cool.

Enjoy!