Crescent Dragonwagon’s
Berry-Basket Summer Upside-Down Cake
Ingredients
Topping and Fruit
- Cooking spray
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 pint fresh blackberries
- 1 pint fresh blueberries
Cake
- 1/4 cup butter, softened slightly
- 2 tablespoons mild vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1-1/2 cups unbleached flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 2/3 cup buttermilk
- About 1-1/2 cups fresh raspberries
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a cast-iron skillet with cooking spray, and melt the butter in it. Sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over the melted butter. Scatter blackberries and blueberries evenly over this (in this case design doesn’t matter, for the fruits blend and melt into one another). Set the prepared pan aside.
- Cream together, using a handheld mixer, the butter, oil and sugar. When the mixture is smooth and a little fluffy, beat in egg and extracts.
- Combine and sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Add about half the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture, beating on lowest mixture setting until just combined. Add half the buttermilk and beat it in. Repeat these steps with the remaining flour mixture and buttermilk. Remove beaters, scraping off as much batter from them as possible.
- Then, working very gently with a spatula and using as few strokes as possible, stir the raspberries in, trying not to crush them.
- Scrape the batter on top of the prepared berries in the skillet. Transfer the skillet to the oven, and bake until the top is golden brown and the sides bubbly; check the cake at 25 minutes, but it’ll probably take between 30 and 35 minutes to reach perfection.
- Remove from the oven, let cool 5 minutes, and reverse out onto a serving platter.
