This brown butter blueberry buckle is a seriously tasty cake! It makes the perfect breakfast or snack cake, and you can’t beat it for delicious blueberry flavor.
I mean, only if you’re a fan of coffee cakes topped with crunchy streusel and filled with juicy fruit will you want to make this guy.
You may also enjoy my peach breakfast cake, which you can make with peaches or blueberries. For ease of browsing, here are all of my muffin and quick bread recipes. Now let’s make this blueberry buckle, shall we?
Pastry Chef Online Participates in Affiliate Programs. If you make a purchase through one of my links, I may earn a small commission. For more information click to read my disclosure policy
Brown Butter Blueberry Buckle, At a Glance
✅Skill Level: Beginner
✅Skills: The Muffin Method, Browning Butter
✅Type: Quick Bread
✅Number of Ingredients: For the Streusel, 6 For the Batter, 12
✅Prep Time: 10 minutes
✅Cook Time: 50 minutes
✅Yield: 10 servings
Jump Straight to the Recipe
What Is Blueberry Buckle?
Blueberry buckle is a blueberry-filled coffee cake with a fairly thick streusel topping. When it bakes up, the streusel sort of slumps in and some of the fruit bubbles up and the top generally has a buckled appearance.
Like other old fashioned fruit desserts named for the sound they make while cooking (mixed cherry berry grunt, for example) or for how they look when they come out of the oven (cherry blueberry slump, cherry cobbler), a buckle is a descriptive name.
To that basic definition, I’ll add that a buckle is generally made with a thick batter–almost a dough–and it bakes up nice and moist and wonderful.
Think of it sort of like a biscuit-type cobbler, except instead of putting the dough on top of the fruit, the fruit is mixed into the dough, topped with streusel, and then baked.
If this sounds like a winner of a fruity dessert to you, I have a favor to ask if you make it:
When you do make this recipe, it will help me and other readers if you:
✅Rate the recipes using the stars in the recipe card
✅Leave a review when prompted in the recipe card (If it’s a positive review, and I hope it is, I’ll use it in the post as social proof)
✅Leave a comment on the post
Thank you so much!
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Make the streusel with or without oatmeal according to your preference. Read more about streusel.
- Cake flour is my preference for streusel to keep it light and crisp, but you can certainly substitute all-purpose if that’s what you have.
- The mixture of buttermilk and yogurt makes for a moist and tender crumb since the acids in them work to weaken gluten. It also makes the finished cake nicely tangy.
- Use lemon extract or the zest of one medium to large lemon.
- Use fresh or frozen blueberries. If using frozen, mix them in while still frozen so they don’t stain the batter.
How to Make the Blueberry Buckle Batter
I admit I didn’t need to use all those words in a row, but I do love me some alliteration!
Anyway, the batter is easy to make using The Muffin Method.
In a nutshell, here’s how it goes:
- Whisk together all dry ingredients.
- Whisk together all wet ingredients.
- Pour wet into dry and mix until barely combined.
This is the same method used to make Ritz Carlton Blueberry Muffins and Pancakes for One among many other muffin and quick bread possibilities.
- Scale out your wet ingredients: yogurt, buttermilk, lemon extract, and egg.
- Whisk them together until well combined and smooth.
- Whisk in the cooled-down-but-still-warm browned butter
- Whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda, cinnamon, and salt
- Pour the wet into the dry.
- Add the fresh or still-frozen blueberries.
- Fold together just until there is no loose flour in the bottom of the bowl.
- Put the thick batter/sticky dough into your springform pan. Prepare the pan by spraying it with pan spray and putting a round of parchment in the bottom.
- With a spatula, press the dough evenly into the pan.
Would you like to save this post?
Enter your email address below, and don't forget to check the box!
Streusel
If you have made a sandy streusel with some chunks of butter remaining, scatter it all over the top of the batter, pressing down lightly.
If you have made a dough-like streusel by working the butter in completely like I did, break off small pieces and scatter them all over the buckle batter.
A sandy streusel will bake up with looser, smaller crisp bits while a dough-like streusel will be more crunchy.
There is no wrong way to do it–it just depends on what texture you want your crumb topping to be.
Bake that guy off until he’s deep golden brown and the internal temperature is about 200F. I use an instant read thermometer for this, and I recommend you get one too because it’s the least stressful way I know to tell if anything and everything from cakes to steaks are done.
What If I Don’t Have Blueberries?
No problem. You can make a buckle with almost any kind of juicy summer fruit. I think a cherry buckle would be splendid! I would probably substitute some nutmeg or mace for the cinnamon, but it’d still be great if you use cinnamon.
Other buckle-worthy fruits:
- Strawberries (I’d quarter them)
- Raspberries–as is
- Blackberries–as is, unless you have some huge ones. Cut those in half.
- Mango–diced
- Peaches–diced
- Plums–diced
Questions?
If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.
Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.
If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.
A Note About Measurements
My recipes are almost all written by weight, including liquids, unless otherwise specified.
For accuracy and consistency of results, I encourage you to buy–and use–a kitchen scale.
I promise that baking and cleanup will be so much quicker and easier.
This is the scale that I recommend for home use. I have owned and used one for years.
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
Did You Love This Buckle? Please Rate and Review!
It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.
You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.
Other ways to share include pinning, and/or sharing on your favorite social media platform.
Thank you so much for taking the time!
Brown Butter Blueberry Buckle
Would you like to save this post?
Enter your email address below, and don’t forget to check the box!
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Streusel
- 2 oz unsalted butter 1/2 stick cut into small cubes
- heavy pinch of salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 oz brown sugar about 1/2 cup, packed
- 1 oz cake flour about 1/4 cup
- .5 oz rolled oats about 1/4 cup
For the Blueberry Buckle
- 3 oz butter
- 5.5 oz plain yogurt about 3/4 cup)
- 4 oz buttermilk 1/2 cup. I use whole milk buttermilk
- ¼ teaspoon lemon extract
- 1 large egg
- ⅔ cup dark brown sugar packed
- 9 oz all purpose flour about 2 cups
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 pint fresh or frozen blueberries do not thaw first if using frozen
Instructions
For the Streusel
- Whisk together all the ingredients but the butter.
- With the tips of your fingers, work the butter into the flour/sugar mixture until there is not too much loose, sandy stuff in the bottom of your bowl.
- You can leave it somewhat sandy, or you can mix it until it looks like cookie dough and then scatter small pieces over your batter. Either way is just fine.
- Set aside.
For the Buckle
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Prepare your pan 9" springform or 9" x 2" cake pan. I sprayed mine with pan spray, fitted a circle of parchment in the bottom, and sprayed again. Set aside.
- Brown the butter in a small saucepan. Once the milk solids have fallen and are a deep medium-brown color, strain the butter through a fine mesh strainer and set aside to cool a bit.
- Whisk the warm butter, yogurt, buttermilk, lemon extract, and egg together. Set aside.
- Whisk together the brown sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. and cinnamon together.
- Pour the yogurt mixture over the dry ingredients.
- Add the berries now.
- Fold everything together as well as you can. This makes a fairly stiff dough–like very gooey cookie batter–so do the best you can with about 15-20 "folds." Try to make sure that the berries are as evenly distributed as possible, but don’t make yourself crazy.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan/tins.
- Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the batter. There’s a lot, but use it all.
- Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes.
- Rotate the pan and turn the oven down to 350F. Continue baking until the streusel is a deep golden-brown, the berries are bubbling, and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 20-30 minutes more. If you have an instant read thermometer, you’re looking for about 200F.
- Let cool in the pan for about twenty minutes. Run a narrow spatula around the inside of your pan. Unlock the spring mechanism and remove the sides of your springform pan. If using a one-piece cake pan, turn out onto a plate and then re-invert onto a cooling rack to cool right side up.
- Let cool and glaze as desired or serve with some ice cream or whipped cream.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
- Commence to Sighing Happily.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
To Brown Butter
- Weigh out the butter and cut it into pieces for even melting.
- Cook over medium to medium-high heat, watching it carefully. No need to stir, but you can swirl the pan.
- First, the butter will sputter as the water cooks out, (middle left image).
- After the milk solids fall to the bottom of your pan, it will get very foamy. Swirl the pan so you can see the color of the browned bits on the bottom.
- Stop when the milk solids are a deep brown but not burnt and immediately pour into a heat-safe container to cool down a bit.
Substitutions
- If you don’t have yogurt, you can use all buttermilk for a total of 1 1/4 cups.
- You don’t have to brown the butter. You can just melt it and go from there.
- Feel free to leave out the extract or use the zest of a lemon instead.
- If you don’t like–or don’t have–oatmeal, just add an equal amount of additional flour and leave the oatmeal out altogether.
- You can also bake this batter as streusel-topped muffins, if you’d like.
A Note On Baking Times
Baking times will vary depending on the size and shape of your pan and the depth of your batter. My final buckle was 9″ in diameter and about 2″ tall, and it took about 50 minutes to bake. Plan your time accordingly. If you use an 8″ pan, it will most likely take an additional 10 minutes or so. If the cake seems to be browning too much, loosely cover the top with foil.Storing
Keep the cake, covered, at room temperature for up to 3 days. For longer storage, freeze individual slices and thaw either at room temperature or in the microwave for a few seconds.Nutrition
Hi, y’all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hopefully also learned a thing or two.
If you like my style, I invite you to sign up for my occasional newsletter, The Inbox Pastry Chef.
Expect updates on new and tasty recipes as well as a bit of behind-the-scenes action. I hope to see you there!
And there you have it, friends. Enjoy the blueberry buckle.
Take care, y’all.
Join in Today!
People have found it to be a very soothing video with the sound of the mixer and the sizzle of the butter! I hope it gave you the affirmation you needed!
Your recipes are always so comprehensive and delicious. This one for brown butter blueberry buckle is certainly no exception! Love it!!
Thank you, Renee! I love the way the nuttiness of the brown butter plays with the mellow berries and the bright lemon. 🙂
I have been DYING to make a buckle ever since I learned what they were…and you sold me with the streusel and brown butter. You truly know the way to my heart. That crunch and the bursting berries are heavenly!
Woman, it is time. Buckle up!
Ice cream!
Always! 🙂 Good luck in the giveaway, Carol! xo
Key Lime Pie
An excellent choice! Good luck in the giveaway Robin!
I love buckle, but have never made one. There is a coffee shop in our hood that serves mini buckles, but they would be much better with the addition of blueberries. No excuse now, I must make a buckle!
None at all, Denise–so easy to make, and the brown butter adds so much nutty goodness. I mean, I’m sure the coffee shop buckles are *good* and all, but still… lol
now that’s one thick cake.
browned butter really should be a staple in creative baking.
thanks for sharing!
Just trying to feed your blueberry jones, Dawn! 🙂
This is a very intresting, but unique recipe…I like it!
Thank you, Grace. I hope you try it; I was very pleased with the way it turned out:)
OMG Jenni, this looks fantastic. When I saw that crunchy topping I was sold. Take it out of the pan? Heck, just give me the pan and a big spoon! Amazing!
Thank you, Maureen! There are only 2 reasons why I didn’t just sit down immediately and dig in: 1)The Beloved would have been appalled and 2)The Beloved would have been appalled! 😉