Pages

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Country Berry Cake

I woke up uber cranky today. For some reason, coffee wouldn't do it for me. The imps have been crazy since they woke up, doing crazy things, climbing things, calling me "Mom" and what have you. You'd think a morning of coffee and "When Calls the Heart" would be a goof foundation for a calm, collected woman but, alas, the imps had their diabolical plans instead.

So, what to do when your calm is taken and thrust into the chasm of "motherhood?" You turn on some Dan Gibson's Lakeside Retreat and stomp all angry-like to the pantry to toss all baking supplies onto the table, of course!

I have a bag of frozen berries. Well, had. I decided I wanted to have some berry cake today and I wanted it to be sweet and good with my coming second cup of coffee. This is an experiment and I'm letting you all in on it. So, if it doesn't work out, you can all laugh at me. I'm going to call this my "Country Berry Cake" - because everything with the word "country" in it has to be good and has to work out.

Here are the materials from my pantry:

Dry:
2 cups of flour
A tidbit less than a tablespoon of baking power
A teaspoon of salt
A tidbit less than a cup of sugar
Almost a 12 oz bag of frozen strawberries and blueberries (maybe 10oz)

Wet:
Half a half a cup of butter (4 tablespoons)
2 eggs
A teaspoon of vanilla extract
3/4 of a cup of milk
1/4 of a cup of grapeseed oil because "health"

I preheated the oven to 350 F because it seems like a good number.

I sifted the dry ingredients and added the wet, milk and butter at the same time to be specific. Then the eggs and vanilla. When the batter was nice and smooth, I folded in the berries then poured it all into a 9 x 13 baking pan. I had to spread out the berries as the blueberries are like fish and school together. (yes, bad visual for cake but take it, people. I'm cranky, remember?)

At this point, it looked like this:
I'm hopeful.
I placed it into the oven for about 30 minutes then impaled it with a toothpick to see if the innards are still wet or dry. (in real world terms, I poked it with a toothpick.) Sadly, it was still very, very wet and gutsy so I waited longer. About 45 minutes to be exact.)

And then it looked like this:
(yes, I lost my sense of patience and cut into it and ate before taking the picture. Excuse: You can see the "texture" here.)

It's PERFECT


Honestly, the cake is heavenly. Crumbly and soft and perfect for coffee.
Try it. Let the country gal out.