MouthLondon - London Student & Youth Magazine
Recipes: Raspberry Cake
Pin ItAs I type, the last slice of this cake sits in front of me: perfectly pink raspberries in a golden cake that’s just firm enough to be held and eaten with one hand. It’s so easy to eat – just three bites – and it’s gone. Luckily it’s easy to make, too.
This is basically Smitten Kitchen’s raspberry buttermilk cake but with double the butter. If you enjoyed last year’s strawberry cake, you’ll like this – there’s less fruit, but you get a cake which is no less fragrant, delicious, and summery. The raspberry is intensely tangy soon after baking, but it settles down after a few hours with a jam-like sweetness that complements the soft, vanilla-scented cake.
I know for a fact that this cake keeps well for 4 days, but only because I was modestly sharing it with my boyfriend and limiting myself to a slice (or two) a day. I wouldn’t blame you, though, if you dispensed with niceties and ate this cake by the fistful…
Ingredients
- . 150g plain flour (plus extra for flouring)
- . ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- . ½ teaspoon bicarbonate soda
- . ½ teaspoon salt
- . 125g unsalted butter, soft and spreadable (plus extra for greasing)
- . 150g caster sugar, plus another 1 ½ tablespoons for sprinkling
- . ¾ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- . 1 large egg
- . 125ml buttermilk, or room-temperature milk mixed with 1 tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice.
- . 150g fresh raspberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190° C.
- Grease and flour a 20 cm cake tin.
- Combine the plain flour, baking power, bicarbonate soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and 150g sugar together with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until pale, light, and creamy.
- Beat in the vanilla extract and egg.
- Mix in a third of the buttermilk. (Don’t worry if it looks curdled!)
- Add a third of the flour mixture, beating thoroughly until just combined.
- Continue alternating the rest of the liquid and flour in this way until everything comes together in a smooth batter.
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake tin, gently spreading until level.
- Roughly scatter over the fresh raspberries.
- Sprinkle the remaining 1 ½ tablespoons sugar over the fruit and cake batter.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes.
- When the cake is ready it should be well-risen, golden and springy on top. A skewer (or dry bit of spaghetti) poked into the middle should come out free of any wet cake batter.
- Leave to cool for 30 minutes before unmoulding.
- Store in an airtight tub or cake tin at room temperature. Eat within 4 days.
About the author
I'm a self-conscious dilettante with a degree in History of Art from SOAS and UCL. I've lived in Greater London all my life, interrupted only occasionally by brief trips to Thailand. The result is that I speak Thai with a Croydon accent (and sometimes Croydon with a posh accent, but that's another story). Far from being a charming bilingual intellectual of the world who ably holds forth on every topic imaginable at dinner parties, most of what I actually say in either language is "Hello", "That's a nice painting", and "I'm hungry". My idea of a balanced diet is a bowl of Mama instant noodles in one hand and a chip buttie in the other, but I also don't mind a nice bit of duck confit or gaeng paa gai. I don't go to dinner parties, anyway. I like looking at interesting things. Thai contemporary art, Early Modern English portraiture, and lowbrow art have so far held my attention. I consume vast amounts of art and food, so I thought I would give something back by writing.
Further articles by Pear Nuallak →
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