Early Berries In An Upside-Down Cake

Late June is often when the olallieberries down the driveway are ripe and plentiful. It's always fun to try different recipes to highlight their great flavor and juiciness. For a recent meeting I made an upside-down cake that made good use of them, was enhanced with whole pecans, and made a delightful treat, good for any time of the day.

This is a single layer cake made with buttermilk, which gives a nice tang that offsets a bit of the sweetness of the topping, for a nice balance. I made it in a cast iron skillet, but if you melt the butter in a microwave oven or in a small pot on the stove, you can make it in a 9-inch square or round cake pan, too.

I combined a few different recipes to create this cake, so it's possible that the topping has a bit too much butter...but I liked it that way. I think it would work with 4, 5, or 6 tablespoons of butter in the topping, but the 4 tablespoons in the cake was just right.

Although I made this with olallieberries, blackberries are very similar and much easier to find, so I'm calling it Blackberry Upside-Down Cake.

Blackberry Upside-Down Cake

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter 
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon rum
1 pint blackberries, rinsed and drained - dry with paper towels if not fairly dry when drained
19-20 pecan halves
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons rum
1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

On a sheet of waxed paper, or in a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat, stir together the 1/4 cup butter and the light brown sugar until melted . Remove from the heat and stir in the rum. Arrange the blackberries over the butter/sugar/rum mixture in an even layer. Fit the pecan halves, curved side down, among the berries. Set aside.
(Alternately, melt the butter in a microwave oven or on the stove in a pot. Add the sugar, stir, and cook another minute. Stir in the rum and then pour into a 9-inch square or round cake pan. Arrange blackberries and pecans as above. Set aside and use just like the skillet with prepared blackberries below.)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, combining thoroughly after each. Use a spatula to scrape the bowl and beaters as needed.

 Combine the rum and the buttermilk. Add 1/2 of the reserved dry ingredient mixture to the batter, beat just to combine. Add all of the rum and buttermilk and beat just to combine. Add the remaining dry ingredient mixture and beat until just combines. Use a spatula to scrap the bowl and beaters and beat again to combine the scrapings into the batter.

 Pour and scrape the batter over the prepared blackberries in the skillet. Smooth to even the batter. Place in the preheated oven and bake 40-45 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly touched in the center.

 Cool on a wire rack 15 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake with a spatula or a knife. Place a large serving plate over the skillet and invert. Slowly lift the skillet to allow all the juices to drip onto the cake. If any part of the topping sticks to the skillet or cake pan, use a small offset spatula to return it to the cake top.

 Can be served warm or at room temperature.

Since this is a blog about my life as well as about baking and cooking, I have to share that this weekend Sweetie and I made a repair to the house by the sunspace that required a lift machine. A woodpecker decided that he or she should store their acorns in the corner of the outside of the sunspace so they pecked multiple holes, despite our efforts to scare them off. This happened a few months ago, but wedding and other plans delayed the repair. 

Sweetie said that it was full of acorns! He sprayed insecticide into  the space and then covered the hole with roofing tape to keep any moisture out (hopefully preventing sprouting of acorns!), then screwed two long metal plates made of flashing material over the area where the bird was fond of pecking. I had painted them earlier in the same gray as the house and followed up today by painting the caulking and the screws. The final touch was to add a multicolor pinwheel in a flag holder to  the area below the repair to discourage any further bird activity (no photo, sorry). The repair went up to the eaves, a bit higher than this photo.

Above is a photo of the machine. It was easy to operate and kind of fun since it went up and down, sideways and also swung around in a circle. The bucket was not easy to get in and out of and Sweetie tweaked his back getting out the final time. Fortunately we were done.