Midnight Blackberry Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups All purpose flour
- 1 ½ tsp Baking powder
- ½ tsp Baking soda
- ½ tsp Salt
- ½ cup Unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup Granulated sugar
- 2 large Eggs room temperature
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 cup Buttermilk room temperature
- 1 ½ cups Fresh blackberries I cut them into smaller pieces
- 22 drops Dark navy blue food coloring To get the dark color
Frosting
- 1 cup Unsalted butter room temperature
- 5-6 cups Powdered sugar sifted
- ½ cup Blackberry puree made by blending fresh blackberries and straining out the seeds
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 tsp Lemon zest
- Pinch Salt
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Grease and flour two 9-inch (23cm) round cake pans or line them with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Stir in the vanilla extract.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
- Add the food coloring (this is totally not necessary though and I recommend skipping).
- Mix until just combined.
- Gently fold in the fresh blackberries until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
- Divide the cake batter evenly between the prepared cake pans.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean.
- Remove the cakes from the oven and let them cool in the pans for 10 minutes before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely.
Frosting
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the softened butter until smooth and creamy.
- Gradually add the sifted powdered sugar, blackberry puree, vanilla extract, and salt, beating until smooth and creamy.
- Adjust the consistency by adding more powdered sugar if too thin, or more blackberry puree if too thick.
Assembly
- Once the cakes are completely cool, place one cake layer on a serving plate or cake stand.
- Spread a layer of blackberry buttercream frosting evenly over the top of the first cake layer.
- Place the second cake layer on top and frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining blackberry buttercream frosting(usually 3 or 4 cake layers are used).
Decorate (Optional)
- Garnish the top of the cake with fresh blackberries, lemon zest, and mint leaves for a beautiful presentation.
Notes
This recipe does NOT even come close to the photo! First of all, I don't see why adding in food coloring is even necessary, and i would skip that part next time. I did not have navy blue, so I used red and blue and it came out grey on the outside - might be more blue once I cut into it. It would have been perfectly beautiful remaining uncolored. Also, I switched the frosting recipe from the original because it did not make enough. I added more blackberry puree (original was 1/4 cup), twice the amount of butter and powdered sugar, and the lemon zest. I may have chosen to add some lemon juice, but did not try that.
The cake layers came out very thin, and you would need to double to make the 4 layers shown in the photo.
Still waiting to actually slice and taste at this writing.