I can’t help myself. I’m craving summer’s last blueberries and I’m too impatient to test out a recipe of my own.  When I scoot over to Pioneer Woman to see what she’s got (because this is the kind of folksy, decadent breakfast food that she does so well), I feel a serotonin/adrenaline rush pump into my bloodstream. Smack dab in the middle of the screen is a gorgeous hunk of golden cake.

  • A pile of blueberries.
  • A pound of butter (or what seems to be…).
  • A Pyrex pan-sized recipe big enough to feed all 27 shopkeepers on our street.

But Jamie’s going to kill me, I imagine. When we got hitched a little over a year ago, it’s as if we said our own special set of marriage vows, something like “’til death do us part” and “thou shalt not covet– or follow– thy neighbor’s recipe.” Easy enough for Mr. Restaurant Daniel/Food Network champ to say. Harumph.

Flagrantly disobeying my married-to-a-chef promises, I hightail to the corner fruit vendor and pick up a pint of August’s freshest, sweetest berries that just beg to be mixed with the good stuff. A little over an hour later, I’m sinking my teeth into a buttery hunk of crumb cake with just enough salt and cinnamon in its topping to make it a breakfast winner for our tiny family of three for the next week. Chef Jamie? No complaints–he ate over half the pan.

Check out Pioneer Woman’s recipe here. And if I were to tweak a few things, here’s what I’d do:

  1. Make it 3 cups of blueberries instead of 2.
  2. Try out whole wheat flour (for a nice, nutty flavor–and a few health benefits) instead of white.
  3. Skip the final sprinkle of sugar. The crumb cake is plenty sweet.

One square’s left beneath our cake dome… I better get it before Jamie!