Name: Raspberry "Fool's Buttermilk" Summer Cake
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 1 cup gluten free flour; 1/2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp baking soda; 1/4 tsp salt; 4 tbsp butter, somewhere around room temperature; 2/3 cup sugar; 1 1/2 tbsp sugar (keep this separate from the sugar above); 1/2 tsp vanilla extract; 1/2 tsp lemon zest (optional); 1 egg; 1/2 cup fool's buttermilk; 3/4 cup fresh raspberries; 1 9 inch cake pan; electric beaters or stand mixer

Raspberry “Fool’s Buttermilk” Summer Cake

July 8, 2020

by Brookey

Raspberry “Fool’s Buttermilk” Summer Cake

Fool’s Buttermilk is still at large (it makes Kerry laugh. We’re in quarantine together and have brainwashed each other). And now it’s in a really quick and easy cake you can whip up in basically no time! Imagine a really soft, buttery, moist, lemon-scented angel food cake – but much less dense. Way fluffy.

And see how many raspberries are dropped on top there? That’s all you need. Great solution if you bought a big thing of raspberries and have a few left – and you’ve got a few staple ingredients. Eggs. Butter. A nice gluten free flour you like to bake with.

Fun fact, the original post for this recipe was basically one big rag on Kerry for saying he didn’t like cake once. It had like five paragraphs. Listen, back when he said it, I was designing a new cake for this Delirium Beer Dinner. Anyway, it was this whole thing and I was mad.

That day, I silently vowed to make him a cake so good even he would rave about it. I had all kinds of tricksy cakes in mind – tres leches, tiramisu. This raspberry ‘buttermilk’ cake? This was not the cake I was gonna make to do that.

This was some rando basic cake I whipped up with only pantry ingredients and a handful of leftover raspberries from a pie I’d made. I was gonna eat this. Especially because Kerry’d told me he didn’t like cake anyway. This was a practice run on converting a type of cake I used to love to gluten free, using scraps – I was literally cooking this in between making two other things.

Kerry freaked out and said it was a ‘perfect cake.’ Turns out he loves a fluffy, crumbly, bouncy cake – something a tres leches or tiramisu would never be. Basically a super-moist sponge cake? So the most regular, cakiest cake there is. Real caker’s cake. I should have been happy, right? Nope, I definitely picked a fight and complained. What can I say, I’m old fashioned. I like to bake from scratch and pick fights over things that happened months ago I don’t actually even care about.

Now onto the pictures of what it looks like as you cook it! Neat.

Photo one (above), I’ve got my butter I definitely didn’t bring to room temperature before this recipe – and instead put into the mircowave for 10 seconds at a time until just stirrable. I allowed it to slowly… return… to room temperature as I measured out the rest of my ingredients. Pretty sure this counts for something – as you can see the cake turned out mad cute.

Photo two, I’ve plopped that butter right onto the sugar.

Photo three is what the butter and sugar should look like after you’ve beaten it on medium – high speed. Pale yellow & fluffy as a baby chicken.

Now for THREE. MORE. PHOTOS:

Photo one: We’ve added in our vanilla, zest, and egg, beaten to combine, and now what we’re looking at is the batter after we add 1/3 of the gluten free flour mixture – then 1/3 of our “Fool’s Buttermilk.” Extremely easy recipe here.

Photo two, We’ve added another round of our flour and buttermilk mixtures, and beaten on low speed just enough to incorporate after each addition. Almost done!

Photo three: We’ve added the rest of our flour and buttermilk, and scraped that beautiful batter into our prepared cake pan. Then smoothed the top and arranged the raspberries – VERY gently.

Now you’re gonna be whipping out that 1 1/2 tbsp of sugar you saved to sprinkle over the top of this before you pop it into the oven. How about a nice, close-up pic of what that looks like? It would be my extreme honor.

While we’re here, let’s talk about how all the raspberries (above) are facing “o-side up” if you will. This is just aesthetic preference. I’ve heard if you place them on top of the batter facing down, in the opposite direction, they’ll all sink into the batter. Try it whatever way you want. Should taste the same, but I really like how this cake looks with the raspberries popping out of the top a little. A couple of them have sunk in anyway! What a downhomey treat.

Got a little moisture left over in the wells of some of the raspberries after you pull it out of the oven? No sweat, this happens sometimes because you’re using fresh fruit. Just take an absorbent cloth or paper towel and very lightly dab that out.

Let the cake cool, turn that puppy over, and spank it to pop it right out of the pan. Even once you unseat it from the pan, it should still hold its shape and that nice, sugary, crackly top. I love a slice of this cake and a glass of milk – not that it needs it. Look at it.