Rosie Makes A Blueberry Buckle.

 

Blueberries were on sale at FoodLion, so I'm making a Blueberry Buckle today.

Now, what is a Buckle?

We have cobblers.  We have crisps.  We have crumbles. We have crumbcakes.  We have grunts.  We have slumps. We have pandowdies.  We have sonkers.  We have Brown Bettys. So what am I making?

I know what a pie is.  I can recognize a pie.  But what about all of the pie's offspring?

All are fruit mixtures, so what sets them apart? 

 Generally, a crisp is baked fruit topped with a mixture of nuts, butter, sugar, and cereal, typically oatmeal.  A crisp is sometimes referred to as a crumble.  Crisps and crumbles are baked with the fruit mixture on the bottom with a crumb topping, made with flour, nuts, cookie crumbs, or even cereal.  The crumble is considered the British version of the American crisp.

A cobbler is a deep-dish baked fruit dessert topped with a thick crust, usually a biscuit crust.  The topping is usually dropped or spooned in clumps over the fruit, allowing bits of the filling to peak through.  The topping is "cobbled," not smooth.

A grunt or slump is a fruit mixture topped with biscuits and is baked on the stove top.  Supposedly. this concoction makes a grunting noise as a result of the steam escaping from the simmering fruit through the vents between the biscuits.  Early colonists in New England attempted to adapt the English steamed pudding to the primitive cooking equipment that had available, resulting in a dumpling-like pudding (basically a cobbler) using local fruit, and cooked on the stove top.  In Massachusetts, they were known as a grunt and in Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island, these were referred to as a slump.

A Brown Betty consists of fruit, typically apples, baked between layers of buttered crumbs.  A Betty is descended from English pudding desserts and is related to the  French Apple Charlotte.  The Betty was quite a popular baked putting made in America during colonial times.

The pandowdy is a deep-dish dessert made with whatever fruits available, but most commonly made with apples sweetened with molasses or brown sugar.  The topping is a crumbly type of biscuit, except the crust is broken up during baking and pushed down to allow the fruit juices to come through.  Sometimes, the crust is on the bottom and the dessert is inverted before serving.  The origin of the name is unknown, but it's thought to refer to the dessert's plain, or dowdy, appearance.

A sonker is an Appalachian term for a deep-dish pie.  Similar to a cobbler, the sonker is served in many different flavors - strawberry, cherry, peach, and even sweet potatoes.  It appears to be a dish unique to North Carolina.

A buckle is a streusel topping over a fruit cake, usually made with blueberries.  The streusel topping makes the top look buckled.  Similar to a crisp, this dessert is also referred to as a crumble.  A buckle is more fruit-filled than a coffeecake and has more buttery batter than a cobbler.

That explained (kinda), I'm making a Blueberry Buckle today.

Blueberry Buckle

Topping:

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/2 cup chopped almonds

Batter

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature + more for pan

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

3 cups blueberries, rinsed, dried, and picked over

Heat oven to 350°.

NOTE:  You could use regular milk, but I had almond milk, so I'm going with a theme here.

Make topping:  

Whisk sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in medium bowl.  Cut in butter and rub in with fingers until mixture cones together in clumps.  Stir in nuts.

Butter an 8-inch pan and line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang.

Butter parchment.

Make batter:

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into small bowl.

In a large bowl with a mixer, beat 1/4 cup butter on high speed until smooth, then add in sugar and beat until well-blended, about 2-3 minutes.  Add egg and vanilla and beat on high to combine, about 1 minute.  Reduce speed to low and alternately add 1/3 of dry ingredients, then half of milk, until all are used, blending after each addition until just combined.

Reserve 1 cup blueberries.

Spread half of batter in prepared pan and sprinkle with 2 cups of berries.  Spoon and gently spread remaining batter over berries.  Sprinkle with 1/2 cup reserved berries, then with half of topping.  Repeat to use remaining berries and topping.

Bake buckle until golden brown, rotating halfway through, and covering with foil if necessary.  Do the toothpick test.  Insert into center and it should come out clean.  About 60 minutes.  Cool pan on rack for 20 minutes, then lift out with parchment edges and let cool completely.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

For the step-by-steps.