This summer I am featuring some of my favorite garden produce recipes. For the entire list, see the Recipes page or click on the recipes label.
Yes, it is that time of year again. The time when raspberry canes that previously stood 6 feet tall move a few feet closer to the earth, looking even more glorious in their reduced stature weighted down by berries than they did peeking over the fence. As much as the summer crop of raspberries is a welcome arrival, it's really the fall crop that makes it worth every scratch, mosquito bite, and close encounter with a bee or wasp that comes with growing raspberries. The berries are bigger, tastier, and more abundant, and with a lot of the garden starting to wind down this week, it's good to know we'll still have the berries for a few more solid weeks.
For the past few weeks, I have been bringing in a (growing) bowl of berries almost daily. This week, we officially crossed over the threshold of what we can reasonably eat fresh in one day, and since the bees are still busily working their magic on over half of the canes, I figured I better find something to do with a decent number of berries. Enter this recipe. Raspberries? Check. That extra container of sour cream in the fridge? Check. Streusel? (It's that time of year when we start yearning for all things German.) Check.
I made just one change to the original recipe: I decided to mash the berries up instead of just adding them whole, so the juices would mix in with the batter a little, giving more raspberry flavor to the entire cake. Also, most of the streusel mix kind of sunk in with the berries (this might have had something to do with either falling short on hand beating the batter or my oven temp--I think I went too low when recalibrating for my too hot oven--I'll have to play with this the next time I make this cake). It was still incredibly tasty though and the inside streusel still had a distinct flavor and texture that added to the overall cake.
Raspberry Sour Cream Streusel Cake
For the streusel topping:
1 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon
8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted*
For the cake:
1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups fresh raspberries
2 Tablespoon powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 10-inch round springform pan.
To make the streusel: stir together the flour, sugar and lemon zest. Add the melted butter and stir with a fork until the mixture is crumbly. Set aside.
*Note: one stick of butter was just a little too much, mix it in gradually to make sure that the streusel is crumbly and not too wet.
To prepare the berries: wash and drain raspberries. Spread berries in a single layer in a shallow dish and mash gently with a potato masher (just enough to break the berries and release some juice, there should still be some larger chunks of berries in the mixture). To make the cake: stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until well blended. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the sour cream mixture. Beat until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Cover evenly with the raspberries. Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the berries.
Bake until the topping is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 38 to 42 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes. Remove the sides of the springform pan. Dust the cake with powdered sugar and serve warm or at room temperature.
Recipe adapted from Williams SonomaLabels: raspberries, recipes
