East to West SH #20 Fruit Buckle

Just returned to Whidbey Island from Eastern Washington via SH #20. After spending the night in cowboy country, Omak, Wa. came home over the North Cascades Highway. Stopped at a fruit stand just outside of Okanagon and bought organic peaches and nectarines. Once we hit the west side, took a short detour through Bow-Edison, Wa to pick up some blueberries at a farm we have been going to for years. Most of the blueberries went into the freezer to be carefully portioned out over the long winter months.

Wanted to make something to eat now, but not the usual. Looking through the index of Joy of Cooking a recipe for Blueberry and Peach Buckle (pg 691) leaped out. Great, I could use both of my fruits in one dessert. Reading the intro, I learned that a buckle is a cake with fruit folded into the batter before baking and finished with a streusel topping.

The buckle reminded me of a coffee cake with the cake and topping overshadowing the fruit. That was a little disappointing as I really wanted more of a fruit taste, especially since I had such nice fresh fruit, I would make this again if I had canned fruit or some fruit that I wanted to use up. We still had no trouble eating the entire cake.

If you want to know how this type of cake got the name "buckle", you will have to read page 690 in the Joy cookbook.