Raspberry dreams

Summers for me as a child meant holidays at my grandparents' farm and that meant raspberries. Punnets and punnets of fresh raspberries picked straight from the bush every morning, still warm from the sun and served with the thickest, spoon stands straight up in it, too thick to pour, Myers’ cream (Myers ran a small dairy down the road). Grandma would can the ones that didn’t make it into our mouths that day to be kept for winter, with a fresh crop ready to be picked the next day. Raspberries are easily my favourite berry, simply for the taste but also for the memories of that little farm.

But enough reminiscing, on to the mini-cake (the real reason we're all here!) Fresh raspberries with thick cream may be the ultimate combination, but raspberry and chocolate has to be a very close second. So, with a punnet of raspberries on hand, I went looking for a chocolate cake recipe. I often find chocolate cakes either too dry or too heavy, so I was anxious as to what result I might get, but again my favourite cake blogger, Tessa Huff at stylesweet.com, came through with the goods. This chocolate cake is the bomb! It will forever be my go to chocolate cake. Very chocolately and velvety with not a hint of dryness while still being light and, well, cakey, rather than brownie-like.

I was also very keen to try the cream cheese buttercream frosting from the same post. I LOVE cream cheese frosting (really, who doesn't). Growing up, carrot cake was coveted for its frosting, as this was the only cake blessed with this delicious food of the gods. But why? As far as I'm concerned, just about any cake can be improved with the addition of cream cheese. That being said, it is typically made with icing sugar, giving it that less than ideal grittiness. But here is a recipe for a meringue-based cream cheese buttercream. Can my dreams have finally come true? A non-gritty cream cheese frosting?!

Alas, it was not to be... at least not as I would have liked. Unfortunately, cream cheese in the UK is not available in the blocks we are familiar with in North America. It only comes in tubs of a spreadable form, which I have come to learn has a higher moisture content. This made the frosting essentially split, making it very difficult to work with and preventing it from having a smooth finish (see the picture above). I have included the recipe as I've made it, but I only encourage you to make it if you have access to proper brick form cream cheese. I will continue to search for a British solution (Aussies, I can't remember what type of cream cheese is available there!)

But despite the frosting challenges, this was still an amazing cake!

CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY MINI-CAKE WITH RASPBERRY CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

makes 2 mini-cakes

THE CAKE

⅔ cup (75g) flour

¼ cup cocoa powder

⅔ teaspoon baking soda

⅓ teaspoon baking powder

⅓ teaspoon salt

⅓ cup buttermilk (1 tsp lemon juice in milk works, too!)

a scant ¼ cup oil

⅓ cup white sugar

⅓ cup brown sugar

1 egg at room temperature

⅔ teaspoon vanilla

⅓ cup hot coffee

Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Grease one 8" round cake pan and line bottom with baking paper.

Whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

Measure out buttermilk and set aside. If using milk and lemon juice, mix together now so it has time to curdle. This also lets the milk warm up a bit if it's straight from the fridge.

Beat oil and sugars on medium for 2-3 minutes. If using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment. Add egg and vanilla and mix well.

Mix on low and add dry ingredients in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, starting and finishing with dry ingredients. Stream in hot coffee. Scrape sides and mix for a final time at medium for no more than 30 seconds.

Pour into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake for 23-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool fully. Remove baking paper.

RASPBERRY CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 large egg white

⅓ cup white sugar

½ cup (113g) butter at room temperature

2½ tablespoons (20g) cream cheese, softened

1-2 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam* (to taste)

½ teaspoon vanilla

*if you have seeded jam, heat it slightly in the microwave to make it runnier then push it through a sieve to remove the seeds

In a heat proof bowl, the bowl of your stand mixer or top of a double boiler, whisk together egg white and white sugar. Place over a pot of quietly simmering water and heat, occasionally stirring until mixture reaches 160F on a candy thermometer and/or sugar has dissolved (I don't have a thermometer and do this by eye, but my results can be variable!)

Remove from heat and beat on high, with whisk attachment if you have it, for 8-10 minutes. Result should be a shiny meringue that holds medium-stiff peaks and has returned to room temperature. Swap to the paddle attachment at this point.

Add butter, one small chunk at a time, allowing each to fully incorporate. Once the butter is all added, mix in the cream cheese, jam and vanilla. Add food colour at this point if you wish. Mix at medium-high for 3-5 minutes and then on low for a minute to smooth out the bubbles.

ASSEMBLY

Place cake on a cutting board and create mini-cake layers by cutting 4 circles. Depending on the size of your cutter, you will need to go quite close to the edge to get the four. If your cake hasn't baked flat, use a bread knife to level the tops of the layers. You’ll want to stuff as many of these offcuts in your mouth as fast as you can before family members discover them (Yum!).

Place one layer, bottom side down, on a plate and cover the top with a layer of raspberry jam. Top with a second layer, bottom-side up. Repeat with other two layers to make a second cake.

Crumb coat with a thin layer of buttercream and place in fridge for 15 minutes. Frost with a thicker layer of buttercream and decorate as desired.

Store in fridge, but serve at room temperature.

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