Fresh Berry “Cake”

In the movie Casino, there is a scene where Robert De Niro is eating a blueberry muffin and notices that his only has a few berries while his business partner’s muffin is falling apart because it has so many berries in it. De Niro then orders the chef to put an equal amount of berries in each muffin from that point on. There are actually ways to guarantee that there are equal berries in every muffin, but the point was that no one likes to get a blueberry muffin with only a few blueberries in it!
You won’t find any berry shortage in this recipe. This is one of my favorite treats during the summer. It is a dessert that surrounds the freshest, sweetest berries (any variety or a mixture of berries) you can find with a delicate, moist cake. I had a friend tell me that this is essentially berries held together with as little cake as possible. I liked that description. I think De Niro would like it as well.

What you need to get together:

For the cake
Butter: 1 ½ sticks, room temperature
Sugar: ¾ cup
Vanilla: 1 teaspoon
Walnuts: ¼ cup, chopped fine
Baking Powder: ¼ teaspoon
Flour, AP: 1 1/3 cup
Salt: ½ teaspoon
Cinnamon: 1 teaspoon
Eggs: 3 each
Berries: 2 ½ cups

For the sauce
Raspberries: 2 cups
Sugar: 1 cup
Water: 1 cup
Orange juice: ¼ cup
Chamomile
Tea bag: 1 each

How to put it all together:

THE CAKE
1. In an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.
2. Add the vanilla and walnuts and beat for 30 seconds.
3. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.
4. Add the sifted ingredients and eggs to the creamed butter mixture alternately (a little flour, then one egg and so on).
5. With a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix the batter for another 15 seconds.
6. Gently fold in the berries.
7. Add the batter to a buttered cake pan (10 inches by 2 inches) and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.
8. Let the cake rest for 5 minutes before serving with whipped cream and raspberry sauce.

FOR THE SAUCE
1. Add berries, sugar and water to a small sauce pan over medium-high heat.
2. Once the liquid starts to boil, add in the orange juice and begin mashing the berries with either a wooden spoon or a heat-proof spatula.
3. Continue to simmer and stir over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until the liquid is reduced by over half.
4. Once the sauce has reached “warm honey” consistency, turn off the heat and add the tea bag.
5. Remove the tea bag after 3 minutes and then strain the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer (try to push the pulp through the strainer; really scrape the pulp until it is dry).
6. Serve the sauce warm or cold over desserts.

A few final thoughts about this recipe:

I think that you will really enjoy this dessert. It reminds me of late summer. If you see fit, add more berries to the batter. If you want more cake, cut the berries to 2 cups. I use a combination of blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries in mine. I have found that strawberries add a lot more moisture to the cake and it almost comes out like a pudding when I add them. Also, be careful when folding in the raspberries. They have a tendency to break apart and can turn the batter pink. I burry the raspberries into the batter once I have it in the baking pan (I use silicone baking pans).
The addition of flavored tea bags is one I came up with while trying to make my raspberry sauce different. You can use any flavor that you like (lemon spice, orange clove or any other that you would normally drink), just try to taste it in your mind before you add it to the raspberry sauce. If you like, you can omit the tea bag all together.