Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

This is a great recipe--it's a light, fluffy coffee cake with sweet blueberries and smooth pieces of cream cheese mixed throughout.  It's sweet but not too sweet.  Think of your favorite blueberry muffin recipe and then think of it tasting even better than that...now you have an idea as to how this recipe tastes!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 1/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour **plus 4 Tbsp. flour set aside for later use
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. milk
2 c. fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen)
6 oz. cream cheese, cubed

Topping:

4 Tbsp. flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. butter

Oven Temperature: 375 degrees
Baking Time: 45 minutes

Start out by creaming the butter and sugar together, and then adding the eggs.

In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir to combine.

Pour 1 cup of milk.

Now you are going to start adding the wet and dry ingredients to your egg mixture.  You should alternate adding one and then the other, stirring between each addition.  The reason to alternate the addition of the ingredients is so that your coffee cake will come out fluffier and more airy than if you were just to dump all the ingredients in at once.

Start out by adding about 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the egg mixture.

Now add about 1/3 of the milk, again mixing until well combined.

Continue alternating adding the wet and dry ingredients to the batter.  Once you have added it all, you will have a thick, smooth batter.

Next, cube the cream cheese.  The pieces end up being about the size of mini marshmallows.

Add the pieces to your batter.

Measure out 2 cups of blueberries.

Place them in a bowl, then pour the reserved 4 Tbsp. of flour over top and mix until the blueberries are coated.

Finally, you want to fold the cream cheese and blueberries into the batter.  Be gentle; you don't want your batter to turn purple from bursting blueberries!

Pour the batter into a greased 9x13" pan.

Next you want to prepare the topping for the coffee cake.  Place the flour, sugar, and butter into a small bowl.  Using a fork, crush the butter into the dry ingredients until it has the appearance of coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle this over the top of the coffee cake.

Toss it into the oven and allow it to bake for approximately 45 minutes.  It should be golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean when it's done baking.

Allow it to cool for a while on a wire rack.  When you are ready, slice it up and serve!