This Czech Coffee Cake Puts Summer Fruit Front and Center - Bon Appetit

The only thing better than a good recipe? When something's so easy to make that you don't even need one. Welcome to It's That Simple, a column where we talk you through the process of making the dishes and drinks we can make with our eyes closed.

Whenever we had an abundance of fresh fruit in the fridge growing up, I knew there was a good chance I’d wake up to find one of my favorite dishes in the world sitting on the counter the next morning: a Czech bublanina, or bubble cake. My mother has always been a busy person, but she was never too busy to whip up this simple vanilla coffee cake with berries or stone fruit sunken into its top.

Though my sister and I were raised in the U.S. and abroad, many miles from her childhood home just south of Prague, my mother—who bravely fled the Czech communist regime before the Iron Curtain fell—wanted to keep a taste of the home she knew, no matter where we lived. We may not have always had the exact Czech ingredients (traditional recipes use a specific milled flour and vanilla sugar), but she made sure to adapt what she’d learned from her mother so we would know what traditional Czech baked goods tasted like, from kolac to bublanina and beyond.

For many Czechs, bublanina is the perfect way to highlight the fruit of the season. It’s simple, delicious, and versatile. You can eat it at practically any time of day, but it’s especially good with coffee. When my fiancé and I moved back to the Czech Republic, both of our new neighbors brought us their versions of bublanina: one with cherries, and one with strawberries. It made it feel like home.

Many Czech recipes are never written down exactly as they are made, but are instead improvised and improved with age, constantly changing over time. This recipe uses a standard-size coffee mug (8 to 10 ounces) to measure out ingredients. (Don’t be scared! It’s impossible to mess up.) Most summer fruits will work for this cake, which is usually made with blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, or cherries. My mom loved using plums or apricots for their tartness.

Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Pearl Jones

To start, preheat your oven to 350°. Pick a medium-sized baking pan that has a wide surface area, like a cake pan or a rectangular pan, and is two or three inches deep, keeping in mind that the batter will double in size as it bakes. Line the baking pan with parchment paper for easier removal, or butter the pan.

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