I absolutely love the combination of sweet, tangy buttermilk cake with juicy berries. I first made this raspberry buttermilk cake a few years ago and haven’t stopped making it since, it’s a simply delicious cake that doesn’t need any frosting or garnish. I made the same cake with blackberries for Mother’s Day, decorated it with organic roses, sugar pearls, white chocolate drizzle, and edible gold flakes from Japan.

Buttermilk Cake with Blackberries 

recipe adapted from Food&Wine, and Gourmet

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter (4 Tbsp), softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
• 1 1/4 cup fresh blackberries + more for garnish
• 1 1/2 tbsp of turbinado sugar
• (Optional) Sweetened Whipped Cream (1/2 cup cold heavy cream + 1 Tbsp of sugar, whipped until firm)
• (Optional) White Chocolate (melted over double boiler, drizzle over cake)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9″ round cake pan.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Beat butter and 1/2 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, then beat in vanilla. Add egg and beat well.
4. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.
5. Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter blackberries evenly over top, lightly press them in. Sprinkle with the turbinado sugar.
6. Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10-15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.
7. Drizzle with melted white chocolate, serve with sweetened whipped cream and more fresh blackberries.

Here is the gold flakes that I used. This was a gift from my parents, from when they visited Japan. (Yunokuno no Mori, it’s a small cultural center in Ishikawa. This region produces 90% of Japan’s gold leaf.)