More Blackberries

We've been lucky this year. A number of the mornings have been foggy, so getting out early and picking blackberries has worked and saved me from picking them in the blazing sun. Too much time in the sun isn't good for me anymore, so 'Yay!' for foggy mornings. I used some blackberries picked this morning to make a cake to take to a celebration dinner.

Blackberries always remind me of our son Max. When he was tiny he would go with Sweetie to walk our black lab, Shogun, around the block in the morning. When the blackberries were ripe, he would return home with his face and hands stained purple with the juices, having eaten his fill from the community garden that was in the first part of the walk. Later, when we moved north, he and his friends would make 'feasts' on grape leaves, with ripe blackberries, the first Gravenstein apples, and any walnuts that had ripened, although there were few of those and even less walnut meat once they had broken the shells by stomping on them! Max would have been 41 today. Happy Birthday Max!

This recipe is a variation of one I tried a few years ago. It's for a fruit upside-down cake baked in a skillet. Last time I baked it in the early spring with rhubarb and strawberries. Now we are in late summer, so the berries are mostly local blackberries plus some raspberries from Costco. The last time it seemed like the recipe was skimpy on the cake part, so this time I adjusted it to work in a 10-inch cast iron skillet, but kept the original ingredients in the recipe below because this time there was too much cake...although it's good cake! You can bake this up fairly quickly...about 25 minutes in the oven. The key is to have room temperature butter and eggs for the cake so harder to do spur of the moment.

You can use any kind of fruit for the topping. At this time of year you might want to use figs, or plums, peaches or nectarines, late fresh apricots or early pears, plus any kind of berry...they would all be delicious! There is also nothing stopping you from including chopped nuts as part of the topping, or even un-chopped nuts as part of the design you make with the fruit. Get creative!

No fresh fruit? Frozen berries would work, too, although they might break down a bit more. Canned peaches or apricots would work, too, as well as the old standby, pineapple. I didn't get a photo of the cake cut, but I can tell you that is was delicious with the two kinds of berries.

You can always leave a comment with a URL linking to your own post if you try something wonderful and want to share!

Double Berry Upside Down Cake

recipe by Elle - sponge recipe from The Baking Explorer

Serves 8

Topping:

4 oz. butter or margarine, melted 
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
Most of 1 pint fresh blackberries
1/2 pint fresh raspberries

Cake:

8 tablespoons or 107 oz. butter or margarine, soft 
107 oz. (about 3/4 cup) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
107 oz. (about 1 cup) self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
1/4 teaspoon lemon oil or extract

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or grease a 8 or 9-inch cake pan, line the bottom with parchment and butter it lightly OR use a seasoned cast iron skillet as is.

Place the melted butter, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon corn syrup in the bottom of the pan and stir gently to combine. Place the berries in a nice arrangement on top of the butter mixture. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar and beat until light in color and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. This can be done by hand, with a hand held or stand electric mixer or in a food processor. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until fully incorporated. Scrape beaters (or spoon) and bowl often. Add the flour and vanilla and lemon, if using, and beat gently/on low, just until incorporated. If you beat too much you might make the cake tough.

Dollop the batter over the arranged fruit in the pan and use a small offset spatula or the back of a large spoon to smooth the batter into an even layer.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, turning 1/4 turn about half way through the baking time, until golden brown. Center will spring back if lightly depressed with a finger. Sides of cake may be starting to pull away from the pan. As you can see in the photo below, because I used a wide skillet, the batter barely covered the fruit in some places.

Let sit about 2-3 minutes on a wire rack, then cover pan with serving plate and, carefully, turn plate side down. Let the pan sit over the plate a minute, then remove the pan. If any of the fruit stuck to the pan, use a small spatula to scrape it off the pan and return it to the fruit pattern. Serve warm or let cool to room temperature to serve.

Fruit Basket Coffee Cake

Summer certainly brings lots of kinds of fruit. Right now we have ripe peaches, luscious dark cherries, olallieberries right off the vine, and raspberries, plus green grapes and some plums that are almost ripe which are turning a lovely shade of red-gold on the tree down the hill. The plums and olallieberries are the only local fruit, but the cherries, peaches and raspberries are certainly seasonal.

Yesterday I made a lovely coffee cake to showcase the peaches, cherries, olallieberries and raspberries. It's a variation of the Nectarine Cake in Lauren Chattman's Cake Keeper Cakes book, one of the great cookbooks we baked from during my time with the Cake Slice Bakers.

I made one and a half times the cake batter because the original recipe only makes a thin layer of cake and I wanted one thick enough to absorb all the fruit juices. I also added some almond extract, while keeping the vanilla extract. For the topping I used brown sugar, pecans and ground nutmeg instead of white sugar and cinnamon...they recipe gave two choices for nuts and pecans were one of them.

I baked it in a nine-inch springform pan instead of a ten-inch one. Because I had such a wonderful choice of fruits, I used cherry halves around the outer edge, then peach slices, then olallieberries and raspberries in the middle.

Do watch this cake because the nuts might get too brown...just tent with foil if that happens. Because  the batter is deeper than the original, it took a while to bake, but came out moist with a nice crumb and browned crust. We actually enjoyed this cake for dinner dessert, so I served it with soy vanilla ice cream and that was a great choice. Sweetie added some whipped cream to his, and you can always add extra prepared fresh fruit.

I've never been a big fan of summer, but sitting outside for dinner because it's still warm by 7 o'clock makes summer a bit easier to take. All of the beautiful flowers that are blooming in the garden also are a benefit of summer. Too bad it gets so hot!

Do try this cake, especially if you have some ripe fruit on hand. You can use all one kind of fruit or two kinds, or three if four is too much. With most kinds of fruit, push them down into the batter a bit to allow the juices to soak into the cake. Enjoy!

Fruit Basket Cake with Nutmeg Nut Topping
based on Nectarine Cake in Lauren Chattman's Cake Keep Cakes
serves 8-10

For the Topping:
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped

For the Cake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks, 6 oz.), unsalted butter or non-dairy margarine, softened
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups assorted stone fruit and/or berries or one kind or fruit, ripe - peel plums or peaches and pit them, pit cherries, pit nectarines or apricots, wash and dry berries

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease the insides of a springform pan, 9-inch or 10-inch preferred.

Combine the brown sugar, nutmeg and chopped nuts in a small bowl. Set aside.

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl or on a sheet of waxed paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the sugar and butter together on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape bowl and beaters as needed.

With the mixer on low, add the eggs, one at a time, beating to combine the eggs with the butter mixture after each addition. Scrape bowl and beaters as needed.

Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts. With mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture, a 1/2 cup at a time. Scrape bowl and beaters as needed and at the end. Use scraper to give batter a final stir to make sure all is combined.

Scrape batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top of the batter. Carefully place the prepared fruit, pushing down a bit into the batter. If using more than one kind of fruit, you can create a pattern.

Sprinkle with the topping. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45-55 minutes. Cool cake in pan for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides, unhinge the springform and cool cake on wire rack until tepid. Remove from the springform bottom and place on a serving plate.

Serve with more fruit, ice cream, whip cream or just as is.

Store uneaten cake, if any, in a cake keeper or wrap in plastic and store at room temperature for up to 2 days.