On Smitten Kitchen, there is a lot of discussion over Everyday Cakes –  the kind of cakes you can easily whip up from ingredients you already have in your kitchen. ahahaha. My life just doesn’t run that way. I never seem to have everything I need for a recipe just lying around. Except a few weeks ago I had the day off, both buttermilk and a small container of blackberries in the fridge, and a book club meeting at night. I made Deb’s Raspberry Buttermilk Cake, swapping the raspberries for blackberries, and had this sliced and ready to pack up in under an hour. It was light and barely sweet, the perfect spring cake to eat while discussing how bounty hunters  in the early ’90s managed to get anything done without cell phones or google maps.

Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

Source: Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature

2/3 cup + 1 1/2 tbsp sugar, divided

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup fresh blackberries (or raspberries, blueberries, strawberries…)

Directions:

1. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
2. Cream together butter and 2/3 cup sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add egg and mix well.
3. Mix in flour in three additions, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.
4. Pour batter into a 9″ cake pan, sprayed with non-stick spray (or buttered and floured), and smooth top.
5. Scatter berries over top, and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tbsp sugar.
6. Bake at 350 until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, 20-25 minutes.
7. Cool in pan 10 minutes, before turning out onto wire rack to cool completely.