This recipe for blueberry bread was given to me by some unknown lady who shared her love of clipping recipes with me.

She was someone who I don’t know, but she’d clipped and saved recipes for apparently a long time.

About a year ago she gave me all of her clipped recipes.

This one caught my eye because I love blueberries and we grow them.

We normally have so many blueberries I want to try new recipes using them.

This recipe was a perfect example of the kind of recipe I like to try.

The recipe had been cut from the August 1994 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

The title of the recipe was missing so I just call it blueberry bread.

Blueberry Bread

INGREDIENTS

— 2 teaspoons baking powder

— 1/2 teaspoon salt

— Cake flour (not self-rising)

— Sugar

— 1/2 cup light corn-oil spread (1 stick)

— 1 cup low fat milk (1 percent)

— 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

— 1 large egg

— 1 1/2 cup blueberries

— 1 tablespoon slivered almonds

— 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a nine-by-five-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix baking powder, salt, three cups cake flour, and 1-1/2 cups sugar. Reserve one tablespoon corn-oil spread for crumb topping.

With pastry blender or two knives used scissor-fashion, cut in remaining corn-oil spread until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in milk, vanilla extract and egg until flour is just moistened.

Gently stir in blueberries; spoon batter into loaf pan.

Coarsely chop almonds. In small bowl, with fork, mix almonds, cinnamon, two tablespoons cake flour, two tablespoons sugar, and reserved corn-oil spread until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle crumb topping over batter.
Bake loaf one hour and 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool loaf in pan on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan and finish cooling on wire rack. Makes 12 servings.

I found this recipe before my weekly grocery trip. I don’t keep cake flour in my baking cabinet and I wasn’t going to buy any. I figured I could look on the Internet to see if I could make it.

There were several web sites with directions and all I read said the same thing.

Here’s the How to make cake flour: Measure one cup of all-purpose flour, remove two tablespoons of the flour and replace it with two tablespoons of corn starch. Put the mixture into a sifter and sift over and over, at least five times.

I measured out three cups of flour into a bowl and removed six tablespoons of the flour from the bowl, then I added six tablespoons of cornstarch. Then I sifted the two only five times, because I was tired of sifting and I wanted to get on with making the bread.

I added the baking powder, salt and the sugar called for. The recipe called for corn oil spread, but I used butter. I just cut up the stick, minus one tablespoon (which is for the crumb topping) and used a pastry blender to combine everything.

Once this was the consistency of fine crumbs, well maybe not fine, but what I considered good enough, I poured in the wet ingredients and everything was just moistened.

I folded in the blueberries, which, by the way, were some we’d grown (I made this bread before blueberry season was over — you can use frozen if you want) then poured the batter into a greased loaf pan.

I had slivered almonds on hand so they weren’t hard to chop with a butcher knife and add them to a small bowl. I sprinkled in the cinnamon and added two tablespoons of flour.

Now I didn’t do the math to make just two tablespoons of cake flour; instead, I just used regular all-purpose for this part of the recipe. I added the sugar and the one tablespoon of butter I’d saved earlier. I used a fork and mixed everything until it was crumbly, then I sprinkled it on top of the blueberry batter.

The oven was already preheated and I just slipped the pan into the oven and set the timer.

The bread was done in about an hour and 20 minutes. I did test it with a toothpick just to make sure.

I let the bread cool in the pan for a little bit and then removed it from the pan and let it continue to cool.

I’ll let you know some of the crumb topping fell off when I turned the bread out of the pan, and so it would not go to waste, I ate it. It was good.

When the loaf had cooled for a while and was not hot to the touch, I sliced the end off the bread and Brad and I shared a piece.

We both really liked this bread. It wasn’t too sweet, but it sure satisfied my sweet tooth.

We shared this bread with several people and everyone really liked it.

Lauren B. asked for the recipe right away and I’ve still not gotten it to her.

I’ll have to say this blueberry bread is a winner. It was full of delicious blueberries and definitely nailewd it with my taste buds. No doubt it will be added to my self-made cookbook. I’m glad I’ve got lots of blueberries in the freezer.

Sarah Condley is an amateur baker and chef who is compiling a cookbook of her favorite recipes.