Oh yeah, it’s berry season—get ’em while you can!

Rocky Mountain Correspondent Tania Coffey strikes again with this really good and really easy cake which you should make really soon. Why? Because we have berries! And we probably have cream hanging out in the fridge, dying to be whipped. And we have hungry kids. And because cake is good!

I happen to have one cooling on the counter right now and will figure out where to hide it so it’s there after dinner. If the hiding place is discovered, all is not lost. Apart from the fresh berries you’ve probably got plenty of everything else you need (including time—it’s pretty quick!) to make another.

Now go and enjoy every bite of summer while it’s here!

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

Adapted by Tania Coffey from Gourmet, June 2009

This cake is so much fancier than a crisp or a crumble or cookies.  Super easy but looks like you REALLY care a lot.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour—I have been substituting 1/4-1/3 cup course cornmeal for a little more texture lately.  As long as you have 1 cup total flour the cake has proven to be very flexible.
• 1/2 teaspoon  baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 stick  unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup sugar plus 1 1/2 T raw sugar for top of cake
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1 large egg room temp.
• 1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk.  Just add a squeeze of lemon to your milk and stir it up to make buttermilk.
• 1 cup fresh raspberries (I have substituted blueberries before with success, but don’t try strawberries because that was a disaster unless you like pink pudding cake)

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. Put the half stick of butter on top of oven to soften while oven warms. Get the egg out of the fridge.

Grate lemon zest then make buttermilk with a slice of lemon if you need to.  It needs to sit for a bit.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup  sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla and zest. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.

Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Place raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons raw sugar.  For some reason the raspberries drown a little less if you place them so the hole is up.  They sink like stones the other way.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Watch it at 20 min, it cooks quickly. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more.

Invert onto a plate.  This is Gourmet’s idea.  I have never tried to invert the thing. This cake is actually better the next day for breakfast, but it rarely survives that long.