I'm going to show you how to make one of my all-time favorite summer desserts, which is really easy and rustic, and it centers around summer berries
Now, you can use just one type of berry if you have a bumper crop of strawberries or raspberries, but if you have the option to use a couple different types of berries, I suggest it because I like all the textures and flavors
Now, if you have some big berries, if you're going to include some strawberries, for example, you're going to want to cut them down into smallish pieces, about the same size as a raspberry or blueberry
Obviously, you want to take that core out. Now I'm just going to cut these berries up into rough pieces
All right, these blackberries are mammoth. I don't know what blackberries these are
They're just huge. That one's a normal size. But the other ones need to be cut down a little bit
So I'm just going to cut them in half. Some of these larger ones I'm actually going to cut into quarters
Oh, beautiful. And then some raspberries and some blueberries. So the berries are done
Now let's work on the dry ingredients. Again, nice and easy. This is a great recipe for beginners
We need seven and a half ounces of all-purpose flour. If you were to use that in a cup of amounts
that's a cup and a half. There we go, seven and a half. To this, we're gonna add some baking powder
a good amount of baking powder, a teaspoon and a half. And last but not least, half a teaspoon of salt
All right, that's it for the dry ingredients. Nice and simple. Just gonna whisk these together, set it aside
Berries are done, dry ingredients done. Now it's time for the butter and sugar
And here is a stick of softened, unsalted butter. And that's really well softened
I've let that sit out for a couple of hours. That just makes the creaming of the butter and sugar
much more efficient. Now for the sugar, we're gonna add three quarters of a cup of sugar
One, two, three. So now I'm going to turn the mixer on, let it go for about three minutes
That'll make the butter nice and fluffy and it will lighten in color. All right, so that's been about three minutes and you can see the color and the texture of butter
has changed quite dramatically. It's fluffy, it's lighter in color, and that's how you know
you've incorporated some good air in the butter, which helps give the cake a delicate texture
and some lift. So that's good. Now it's time to add the eggs
and we're going to add two whole eggs and one egg white There the two whole eggs and one egg white All right so I going to scrape down the
bowl here. Now we're going to add the eggs roughly one at a time. Put this on low. There we go
So you want to incorporate the eggs just one at a time, nice and slow
You wanted that egg to incorporate into the butter before you add the next one
All right, I'm going to scrape down the bowl a few times. All right, here goes the other egg
Now I'm going to add some vanilla. I'm going to add a teaspoon of vanilla. I don't think I've ever measured vanilla ever because if a little extra gets in there, I like the flavor
So about a teaspoon. And at this point, if the batter looks a little curdled, you're doing things right
That's exactly how it should look. All right, now time to add the dry ingredients and the rest of the wet ingredients
which is just a third of a cup of milk. And make sure they get into the batter nice and evenly
I'm going to add a little milk, a little flour back and forth. You start by adding about a third of the flour mixture
I'm going to add about half the milk. So this back and forth mixture is kind of important because it prevents the batter from
getting any lumps. Now, this cake is pretty bomb proof. If you happen to add it all at once, it would be totally fine
But it's good practice for cake making because some cakes are more finicky
So that's the rest of the milk, the rest of the dry ingredients
All right, I like doing the last little bit by hand. That way I know everything's nicely incorporated
All right, so now you can see there is flour all around the sides of the bowl, and this
is just your time to clean up the bowl, make sure there's no dry bits lurking anywhere
Okay, last we're going to fold in the berries using a gentle touch
You don't want to beat the berries up too much. They've been drying on this paper towel, and now I'm going to use the paper towel as a
little sling. That didn't work very well, did it? Oh, some berries on the loose. All right
Again just using a gentle touch just going to fold the berries in You can see it a lot of berry to cake ratio which I really like That looks pretty good Now into the pan it goes This is a nine springform pan and that means the sides come off before serving
which means it's just easy to serve a pretty slice of cake. Also, it has tall sides, and this cake gets pretty tall
So into the pan the batter goes, and of course this pan I greased beforehand
I like using a baking spray for this. that's a spray, it's aerosol, that is vegetable oil mixed with a little flour, works perfectly here
But you could grease the pan with butter or just use veg oil spray. All right, now we're just going to smooth the batter out
Now the cake does some self-leveling in the oven, so you don't have to go too crazy here
All right, last but not least, just a little sugar on top
This is two tablespoons of granulated sugar. All right, ready for the oven
It is just a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. And you know it's done when you insert a skewer
into the center and it comes out and it's perfectly clean. So the cake is out of the oven and cooled
and it's almost time to serve it. But first I'm gonna make a little bit of whipped cream
to serve alongside and I'm gonna make it lemon whipped cream because I love that little lemon essence
along with the summer berries. So to make lemon whipped cream, gonna use a little bit of lemon zest
About a teaspoon of lemon zest. I just use my eyes. I don't measure this stuff
All right. Now we're going to add a little bit of lemon juice. About a teaspoon
That looks good. Now I'm going to whip this by hand. I'm not going to use a mixer because it's not a lot of cream
It's just a cup. And it takes less than a minute to do it by hand. And there's far less dishes
Or more accurately, the dishes can go in the dishwasher, which is a big plus for me. So a few tips if you're gonna whip cream by hand. One, this bowl
is fresh from the refrigerator. It's nice and cold. Same with this cup of heavy cream. It has been in
the fridge hanging out so it's nice and cold. Cold cream whips faster. Now how you whisk matters. You
want to go back and forth and create waves in the cream and as the waves crash back through the tines
of the whisk you create sheer force so you're getting double the whisking power. So you go back
and forth I timed myself doing these I had contests and I can easily do this in 45 seconds Keep the rails I know It getting there Now I going to add the sugar Now that I got the cream mostly there
I'm going to add about a tablespoon and a half of the sugar. Sometimes I add a little less because I just like it lightly sweetened
Now the other thing about whipping cream by hand is you can stop right when it's starting to thicken
and so you don't over-whip it because once you see this texture, you're just a few whisks away of soft peaks and it's hard really to stop the mixer in time
and that's when you get over whipped cream that's kind of stiff and broken looking
If you do it by hand you get nice perfect whipped cream. Oh that is perfection. All right the whipped
cream is done and now it's time to unmold the cake. So what I'm going to do is take a paring knife
I'm going to run it around the outside of the cake just to make sure it's loosened from
the sides of the cake pan. I'm being very careful not to scrape the sides of the non-stick pan, but it's nice and loose
This pan was greased pretty well. Now I'm going to pop off the sides. Mmm
And now time to put it on a cake platter. For this I like using a large offset spatula
You can slide the spatula under the cake, and then just gently transfer it right to the platter
And also, with your spatula under there, you can also center the cake a little bit
And I like putting the whipped cream on each slice. So here I'm gonna take a nice slice out
I love how that sugar, some of it melts, some of it doesn't. Makes a nice glossy top. Ooh-hoo-hoo
Get a nice dollop of whipped cream. Oh, hello. Have a little taste
Such a simple flavor with those bursts of berry. That little bit of lemon whipped cream on the top
is so good and I love getting a bite of the blueberry, a bite of the strawberry, perfect
And there you have it, an easy summer berry cake. See you next time
What do you think? Leave a comment below and let me know what you're excited to cook this week
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