Messy looking but delicious. The two major mishaps of this cake, the icing and the berries, ended up making it so decadent.
The original recipe is from The Gourmet Cookbook. My version omits a few ingredients, such as cloves and raisins to keep the taste lighter.
I ignored one of the crucial steps for the icing and it ended up very thin and tricky to spread. I added half a cup of confectioner’s sugar to give it more body and it just barely held. But that’s okay, caramel is supposed to be gooey and oozy. I think having it so messy was perfectly fine. It certainly tasted that way. Q and I were unconsciously spooning up the puddles of icing off the counter when we were frosting the cake.
And the second mistake was that I forgot to get fresh blackberries and had to resort to a bag of *gasp* frozen berry medley from the local convenient store. But it was for the better, the defrosted berries let off some juice that mingled with the icing. Why caramel covered strawberries aren’t a regular pairing is beyond me.
Blackberry Cake
3 c. all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 c. sugar
5 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking soda
1 c. buttermilk, well shaken
1 c. seedless blackberry jam
1 pint of fresh berries (blackberries, raspberries, and currants)
2-3 drops purple food coloring
Sift together the flour, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
In small bowl stir the teaspoon of baking soda into the buttermilk. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl with an electric beater. Add the eggs, mixing well and then the vanilla. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix well. Add 1/3 of the buttermilk, again mixing well. Keep doing this until all the ingredients are in the batter. The very last step is to add the jam. The batter is a pretty shade of lavender but it’ll bake out. Next time I make this, I’m adding food color to keep it purple. 2-3 drops should do.
Pour into 2 pre-greased 9-inch cake pans. Bake at 325F for about 45 minutes.
Gooey Caramel Icing
3 c. light brown sugar, packed
1 c. evaporated milk
1 stick of unsalted butter
pinch of salt
Combine together all ingredients in a saucepan. Over low-to-medium heat, stir until everything is melted. The recipe says to let it caramelize without stirring, until it reaches 235F, but I stirred every now and then for fears of burnt bits on the bottom of the pot. I’ll follow their instructions next time and see how it comes out. They also say to transfer the hot icing to a mixing bowl and beating for 5 minutes and to frost the cake immediately but I ended up adding 1/2 c. of confectioner’s sugar and letting it cool before adding it to the cake.
To assemble, ice the bottom layer. Add the berries before stacking on the top layer and frost away.
Damn. I can’t believe I’m 30.
