This cake came about because I bought 12 punnets of raspberries for $12 and then had a freezer full of raspberries. Not a bad problem to have, but amongst all the bread we also had in the freezer it felt like something needed to be used up!
I liked the idea of just adding some of the raspberries to a nice plain vanilla cake and being able to snack on it whenever it felt necessary. This cake is fairly decent in size so you could definitely snack on it with a few other people as well.
The cake could have a few more raspberries in it than I have suggested in the recipe, maybe 200g or 2 cups if you would like it more filled with fruit.
The cake could be iced with a simple glaze icing if you like, but I liked the simplicity and ease of a dusting of icing sugar. Plus I love the crisp top and sides of a plain cake like this one on the first day it is baked, which will get a bit lost if there is icing. It also means you don’t have to wait for the cake to be completely cool to eat it if you aren’t waiting to ice it - a win win in my books!
Raspberry and Vanilla Snacking Cake
Ingredients:
225g unsalted butter, softened
340g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
375g self raising flour
220ml milk
150g (1.5 cups) frozen raspberries
1-2 tsp icing sugar, for dusting
Method:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius and line a 23cm square cake tin with baking paper.
In the bowl of a stand mixer cream the butter, sugar and vanillas until pale and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each.
Then add half the flour mix to combine. Add the milk and mix (you might want to cover your mixer with a tea towel for the first few seconds while the milk begins to incorporate). Then add the remaining flour and gently mix on low speed until it is incorporated and there are no lumps.
Pour half the batter into the prepared cake tin, then top with half the raspberries and push them into the batter a little. Then cover with the remaining batter and top with the remaining raspberries (no need to push the raspberries into the batter, the batter will swallow them up as it cooks and rises).
Bake for about 1 hour or until the cake is nicely golden and a skewer comes out clean.
Allow to cool in it’s tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool further.
Once the cake has cooled down a bit, but is still a little warm dust over the icing sugar and serve (with nice cream if you have it).
Serves 12 (at least), store in an airtight container, will keep for a few days.
