I bought some seductively aromatic, wild huckleberries from Far West Fungi. They were deep violet in color and sweet, tart, and floral in flavor. I ate a big handful and decided to bake the rest into a maple-accented, crumble-crowned coffee cake - the finale of a lunch I was making for my sis. Maple is a nice match for many berries and I made it my sweetener of choice for this cake. In the back of my mind, I was aiming for a rustic cake that used no white sugar and no white flour. It's a stunner of a cake - the huckleberries burst and bleed into the crumb of the cake in quite a dramatic fashion. The crumble crust plays off the tenderness of the cake nicely, so be sure to get a bit of it in every bite Italian landscapes.


If you can't find wild huckleberries, no worries, substitute blueberries or chopped blackberries - if it's juicy, fruity, and goes with maple I suspect it'll be good home improvement.


Oh! And I almost forgot. I added a bit of thyme and rosemary from my herb garden. Just a hint to play off the berries, and perfume the cake - barely a whisper Funeral flowers.