Boysenberry Buckle Muffins

The days of summer seem years away right now.  This weekend felt very reminiscient of wintertime in Wisconsin.  Over the five years that I spent living in the midwest, I learned to adapt to the blustery winter weather.  Oh, and apparently "blustery" isn't a weather term you hear outside of the northern states.  For those of you living in the milder climates of the United States and the world, blustery means "Stay in your house or don your snowsuit."  Those winters in Wisconsin made me wish I owned one of those onesie snowsuits that you zip little kids into.  They always look so warm...

In Wisconsin, and the rest of the Midwest, you also learn the phrase "too cold to snow."  Now, this might seem a little strange, but there is a certain point where it becomes just too cold for clouds and snowflakes to form.  This is when you see a crystal blue sky outside and you know your eyeballs will freeze if you set foot outside.  I learned to layer everything, pants on top of pants, sweaters under more sweaters, two hats.

This Sunday was one of those "too cold to snow" kind of days in New York City.  Boyfriend and I were in the city meeting his dad for dinner.  We took the afternoon train to Penn station and set out to do some shopping.  Even with wearing a heavy sweater, coat, hat, scarf and gloves, I was cold.  Boyfriend said "It's so cold, my face hurts."  To which I answered "I know!  It's killing me too!"  He didn't appreciate my sixth grade humor and needed the joke explained to him... 

The only thing that my story has to do with this recipe is that I want it to be summer already.  Unfortunately, we are months away from fresh picked fruits and vegetables.  If you go to the grocery store and buy berries, it is very likely that they will be lacking flavor.  Luckily there is a solution, canned berries!

I was completely unaware that you could get almost any berry in canned form, until I was contacted by Oregon Fruits.  After seeing my post fot cherry coconut muffins, Oregon fruit contacted me about using my recipe on their website.  I ventured over there to check out their product and noticed they sell all sorts of berries and fruits!  They wound up sending me a sampling of some of their fruits, including blueberry, raspberry and gooseberry (if you know what to do with a gooseberry, let me know!).  After the hectic holiday season, I finally had the time to break out the berries and give myself a taste of summer.

Peach and Blueberry Buckle

We are coming to those last precious days of summer. August is winding down and fall is right around the corner. As a kid, I always loved this time of year. As we have previously discussed, I’m a bit of a nerd. By the last week of August I was ready to go back to school. I loved getting my school supply shopping list in the mail. I would beg and plead my mom to go to the store and pick everything up right now!

We would go to Vix (in the days before Target in western New York) and I would look thru the aisles at all the new school supplies. Even though I already had two sets of colored pencils, they simply would not do. It was a new year, I needed new pencils! Same goes for folders and pens, binders and erasers. A new year meant a new beginning.

I was always a fairly simple shopper though. I was never one to get bright cartooned folders or Trapper Keepers (c’mon, you remember). I wanted plain colored binders and a matching folder to go along with it. I had that kind of OCD. The organizational OCD. I would write my name on all my new supplies and lay them out, ready for school to start.

In these last few days of August, there is something else to revel in. Stone fruits are at their best right now. I’m talking peaches, nectarines, plums. Those fruits that, when eaten by hand, make an enormous mess of everything in a five foot radius. I find myself in the grocery store or at the farmers market, fondling and smelling the peaches. Keep your peaches away from me, I just might accost them.

When I find some good ones I have a hard time deciding what to do with them. Do I eat them fresh? Do I slice them up and put them over breakfast? How about simmered on the stovetop with cinnamon and nutmeg and eaten warm with ice cream? No, today we make a buckle. There are so many different types of fruit cobbles that I have a slim understanding of how they differ from each other. I think it easiest to define each, as I make them. So for today…

Fruit Buckle – A single layer of cake, generally with berries added to the batter, topped with streusel. Also known as a crumble.

Now that you know what you are baking, head out to the store (or the farmers market) and get yourself some peaches. And some blueberries. There, now we’re ready to bake.