Raspberry cake redo!

Let me just say that it really, really bugs me when a recipe doesn't turn out right. I never thought of myself as a perfectionist, but maybe I am when it comes to cooking. Ever since I baked the cake for the first time on the weekend, I've been thinking about what I did wrong. Was it the too-small pan? Did I mess up the ingredients? Was the oven not at the right temperature?

Seriously, even when I was supposed to be concentrating on pigs, I was thinking about this damn recipe!

So I bought another pint of raspberries tonight and made the cake again to take into work, and... success!

This time I baked it in a 9-inch ceramic pie plate, which I wasn't entirely sure would work. But it seems to have done the trick. And the berries somehow stayed suspended in the cake -- bonus!

The batter seemed thicker somehow tonight, so I'm thinking I maybe added too much buttermilk the last time around? Need to pay more attention to what I'm doing!

Tonight's cake. Ta da!

And might I just add, that I made this cake for the first time on the weekend, then blogged about it. And then Martha Stewart's daughter made the cake and wrote about it on her blog. I think she's copying me.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

It's berry overlap season! We're still getting great strawberries around here (though some of them are quite soft, due to all the rain we've had), but now the first raspberries are appearing as well.

I bought some on the weekend and made this little cake.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk1 cup fresh raspberries (about 5 oz)

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about two minutes, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. 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. Scatter raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.

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

Original recipe adapted from Gourmet, and found on Smitten Kitchen.

Here it is, all ready to go into the oven. I had high hopes at this stage.

And here's the finished product. I couldn't get a good picture, but essentially, all the berries sunk to the bottom. Still tasted good, but you wouldn't know it had raspberries in it unless you cut into it. A bit disappointing.

I think next time I might try dusting the fruit with flour? Not sure if that will help or not.

The other issue is that my cake took a lot longer to cook than the 25 minutes in the recipe. It could be my antiquated '70s-style oven, but it could also be the fact that I only have a seven inch spring form pan, and not the nine inch one called for. Time to go pan shopping, methinks!

Still, in spite of the delay and sunken fruit, this cake is really, really easy and insanely delicious. I think you could easily swamp out the raspberries for any other fruit you might have handy. Really good with a cup of peppermint tea (hint: if you have mint growing in your herb pot, snip off a few stalks and put them in your teapot, cover with water, and voila! Peppermint tea, easy peasy style).