Happy blueberry crumb cake

Remember this?



It's so quintessentially Peanut-y: sweet, but melancholy. Watching the Peanuts always filled me with a bit of dread; I worried about Charlie Brown getting tricked by Lucy or left behind when everyone else went to do something fun, two things which seemed to happen to him all too often.

Anyway, in spite of its happy/sad melody and trembling chorus, I love this little tune, especially the line about the two kinds of ice cream (I mean, right?).

When my sister and I were kids, we had a Peanuts book, a companion to "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," that was called, Happiness is a Warm Puppy. Although it took me until I was 22 and found Frances, I can now verify that this is unequivocally true, happiness actually is a warm puppy. It's also:  the smell of coffee brewing, waking up in Kauai, and your husband coming home after a long trip.

One more, too: happiness is blueberry crumb cake.

At this point, if you're sick of reading about my various blueberry escapades...I suggest you beat it, because I'm not done with them yet. It's August and freezing in San Francisco: the only sign that we have that it's summer is that blueberries abound. They're cheap and they're everywhere.

If you decided to stick around, let me tell you about this delightful blueberry crumb cake. While the core of the recipe is not new to me or this blog (I wrote about its original incarnation, jammy apricot crumb cake, last December), one day recently I was in the mood for breakfast cake and had some blueberries needing attention.

Instead of dolloping apricot jam over the simple batter, I substituted the blueberries (about a pint), then covered them with crumb topping. Since blueberries are apparently the way to a long and healthy life, I figure they're still beneficial even if sprinkled atop a soft and sweet cake and tucked underneath a layer of brown sugar and butter.

They are certainly the way to happiness.