dark chocolate blueberry cream cheese coffee cake.

This cake. Goes into my mental list of Things That Make Me Glad That I'm Alive. Either I've not been eating enough cake recently or this cake is just plain delicious but whichever the case, I've not been able to stop thinking about it. You know how when you bake a certain dessert and it's so good you immediately think about when you're going to make it again, how you're going to switch it up for fun and basically conjure up a whole list of variations while you're quietly nibbling on whatever it is you baked? I've been doing that. Even now as I'm enthusiastically punching the keys of the keyboard. I'm practically gushing now I'd better stop and get on with explaining what's so good about this cake.



So getting back to the situation proper. When you make this cake, after scraping the vanilla batter into the pan, you plop a giant mound of sweetened lemon cream cheese filling in the center, cover it with a layer of quick blueberry jam, sprinkle crumble on top and scatter a handful of dark chocolate chips over to finish. The finished cake will have a crater of gooey cream cream cheese, blueberry and chocolate that will literally have you mesmerized. I think I was supposed to spread the layers out evenly but hey I think a crater sounds pretty awesome too. And the crumble adds a crunch that is especially pleasing after tackling all that delicious lava.

I couldn't wait to dig in so I rushed through the photo-taking and totally didn't realise that the focus is wrong in the second picture until it was too late to take another shot (forks had already descended upon the cake like starving ravens). But I hope the picture still manages to convey how divine the cake looks!

I deviated from the recipe quite a bit unintentionally (I was baking while I was still half asleep), which included forgetting the lemon zest in the cake batter and forgetting that not all of the sugar stated in the recipe is supposed to go into the cake batter. Luckily the cake wasn't too sweet even with the added sugar. The major change is that I used milk instead of sour cream but this was because I didn't have any sour cream or yoghurt on hand. I imagine that if sour cream had been used, the batter would be thicker and the whole cream cheese blueberry chocolate mix wouldn't sink so deep like it does here.

I'm really looking forward to making muffin versions of this recipe! I might even attempt using strawberries but it seems like such a waste to bake with strawberries don't you think?

P.S. Have I mentioned that this cake has been on my to-bake list for 2 years? I can't believe I took so long to get down to baking it!

Dark Chocolate Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake
makes a 9 inch cake
recipe taken and modified from here

1 tsp cornstarch
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup butter, cold and diced into chunks
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
zest from one lemon
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 9 inch round cake pan.

In a small bowl, stir the cornstarch with 2 tsp of water. Set aside.

Place the blueberries and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. As soon as it starts to boil, lower the heat and simmer until the berries have released their juices (about 3 minutes). Stir in the cornstarch mixture and continue to simmer until the mixture has thickened. Remove pan from heat and set is aside to cool to room temperature.

Whisk together the flour and 3/4 sugar. Cut in the chunks of butter until the mixture becomes coarse and crumbly. Set aside 1/2 cup for topping the cake later. Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon zest into the remaining mixture.

Combine the sour cream, vanilla extract and one egg. Stir into the flour mixture. Scrape batter into prepared pan.

Stir the cream cheese, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, egg and lemon juice together until well-blended and smooth. Pour on top of the batter and spread out evenly using a spatula, leaving a 1/2 inch border.

Pour the cooled blueberry mixture on top of the cream mixture and spread out evenly and gently. Sprinkle over the reserved flour mixture and then the chocolate chips.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the cake is golden brown. Cool completely before slicing.