Berry Buttermilk Bundt

May 14

May 14 Berry Buttermilk Bundt

Now that I am a “professional” baker I feel like there is substantially more pressure on me to bake something phenomenal and perfect at every opportunity I have to show off. Now, obviously, this backfires nearly every time. Some of you may remember a certain raging pink mess I mentioned in the preamble to last summer’s galette recipe- an attempt to make a marbled rhubarb cake with a dirty pink tinged frosting that set as I was still icing the cake. There have also been at least three utter failures of what has become my favorite chocolate cake, and even still, I have never gotten it completely right- either with the frosting seizing up or the cake falling apart every single time. And then there were the impressively tasteless raspberry muffins I made last year on Mother’s day, and a dutch baby that seemingly baked both upside down and/or inside out. Entire layers of genoise cake have been lost, and more recently there were even two whole bundt cakes that took a tumble to the floor, wet icing side down. What I’m trying to say is; I’ve had my fair share baking disasters. They’re not usually fatal mistakes; the results still being more or less edible. In fact, I ate every single one of those disasters and great things often come as a result, usually just my desire to make it again—perfectly.

So I was asked to bake something for Easter. The pressure was mounting and I couldn’t decide what I was going to make. I was bouncing between scones, coffee cake and galette. I wanted something pink, after all, pink is the official color of spring and I have been seeing some gloriously pink icings lately. This pink icing can be made one of two ways. First you can go the normal route and use a few teaspoons of raspberry juice in place of lemon juice in your standard powdered sugar glaze. Or second, you can go to the store, buy some very expensive freeze dried berries, take them home, put them in your new (goodwill purchased) spice (very clean coffee) grinder and whirl them up, sift out the seeds, whisk the fluorescent raspberry dust into powdered sugar, and add lemon juice and finally go about your icing business as usual. So that’s just what I did. For underneath the icing, I selected a buttermilk berry bundt cake from smitten kitchen- a recipe I had never tried before.

Making a recipe for the first time can be very hit or miss; often you may be blessed with beginners luck, as they call it, and you might outshine even the person who wrote the recipe and annoy all your peers with your undeserved success. Alternatively, it will be a massive failure; possibly due to your innocence and tendency to overlook details or perhaps your ego has gotten a little too big from making it as a professional and the universe gives you healthy dose of well earned humility. Which scenario happened to me? I cannot say. I did make a few vital mistakes, though, that are characteristic of me that can be blamed on two of my lesser traits: gluttony and impatience.

First off, the recipe called for three, “maybe four”, cups of fresh berries. “How could I not prefer it with four cups?” I asked myself. Sure, I had some concerns about what the added moisture and potential for stickiness would do to the structural integrity of a cake, but then again, too many berries is better than too few. So then, not only did I use four cups of berries, three of those cups were frozen raspberries (the other cup was fresh blueberries) that I bought to be cheap- a choice I still stand by. This was an excellent ratio of raspberries to blueberries but the cake was structurally unfit. My other mistake- due to the absolute fabulousness of the pink icing- is that I inverted the cake a teensy bit too early. It was objectively way too hot when I tried to get it out of the pan and that, coupled with all those juicy berries caused me to loose a good portion of the cake’s crown.

In the end, the show must go on. I ate the delicious chunks stuck to the pan, and poured my beautiful pink glaze on the cake. I put it on my most beautiful, pinkest, cake plate and topped it all off with a bit of the raspberry dust tapped through a small sieve. Suddenly it was Easter morning and I had yet another pink disaster on my hands, but this one was glorious in it’s failure and tasted perfect. If I’ve learned one thing about baking mistakes it’s lean in.

Now, don’t worry, I have since made this cake far more successfully. I learned from my mistakes and used three cups of fresh berries- as the original recipe calls for. You probably really could add that fourth cup of berries if you’re feeling particularly reckless but you will, under no circumstances, use frozen berries. I also baked the cake an additional 10 minutes; the cake was so soft and delicate that the extra time in the oven helped eliminate some of the excess moisture, making it a bit sturdier and much easier to invert. And you must wait at least 20 minutes before inverting the cake if you want good luck. *I have attached pictures of my failed attempt for your viewing pleasure. See end of post *

NOTE: Bundt pans, as we all know, are a giant pain. They require extensive buttering of their crevices and their unique and beautiful designs usually entail a large amount of tiny crevices for you to butter. I did some research on the subject of inverting bundt cakes after my last (successful, mind you) attempt at baking this wonderful cake. The most useful sounding tips were to using shortening, possibly even melted, instead of butter to grease your pan, and to use sugar or toasted nut flour to “flour” the pan. The tip I can recommend most it to butter your pan with at least 1-2 tablespoons of butter (or shortening) put it in the fridge for 10 minutes. Butter it again with another 1-2 tablespoons of butter, and then flour or sugar the pan as you like. When the cake comes out of the oven, wait about 20 minutes before trying to invert it. If you invert it too soon the cake may still be too hot and delicate and if you wait too long the cake will become sticky and too moist.

Berry Buttermilk Bundt Cake

adapted slightly from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

2 1/2 plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs at room temperature

3/4 cup buttermilk at room temperature

3 cups of fresh berries of your choice, rinsed and well dried

Raspberry-Lemon Glaze:

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

2 Tablespoons freeze dried raspberries

3-4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350 F

Prepare your pan: Using 2 tbsp of butter, generously grease your bundt pan very carefully. Chill for 10 minutes. Grease again with another 2 tbsp of butter then coat the pan with flour tapping away the excess.

Whisk together or sift 2 1/2 cups of flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.

In a separate bowl or standing mixer, cream together butter and sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.

Add vanilla and mix well to combine.

Turn the mixer to low speed and add dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with buttermilk in two additions, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Only just combine the batter between additions. You can also do this part by hand by gently folding and mixing. The batter will be fairly thick.

In a separate medium bowl, add the berries and remaining two tablespoons of flour and toss to coat the berries. (This helps the berries to not all sink to the bottom of the cake.)

Gently fold the berries into the batter. Some of them may break apart, don’t stress too much.

Pour, or perhaps spoon, the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Use a spatula to level the top.

Bake for 60-70 minutes, rotating halfway through, until a tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean and the top of the cake is golden and springy to the touch. Let cool for about 20 minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack.

Make the glaze:

Put the freeze dried raspberries into a spice grinder or very clean coffee grinder. Grind to a fine powder.

Sift the powder to remove the seeds.

Combine the sifted raspberry powder and confectioner’s sugar in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk to combine.

Add lemon juice a tablespoon at a time until the glaze is thick yet pourable, it will turn a bright pink color when the lemon juice is added.

To glaze the cake place the cooled cake on a cooling rack set over a lipped baking sheet. Pour the glaze in a circle around the crown of the cake, letting the glaze drip down the sides. Let set for 5-10 minutes then serve.