Have your cake and eat it too!

Buttermilk Berry Cake
(adapted from 101cookbooks.com)
Serves 12

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup fine-grain sugar (or brown sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled a bit
zest of 2 lemons
1 cup of dried cranberries (more if you like)*
3 tablespoons large grain raw sugar (use regular if that is all you have)
1 teaspoon large grain salt (use regular if that is all you have)

*the original recipe calls for raspberries, but I didn’t have any on hand, so I used dried cranberries. You can use any berry fruit you have. I noticed some cranberries burnt a little on top, so if you use dried fruit, you may want to mix them in after step 5…be sure not to over mix!

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F degrees, racks in the middle.
   
2. Grease and flour (or line bottom with parchment paper) a 9” square baking dish. You could also use a pie or tart pan.
   
3. Combine the flour, baking powder, and sugar and salt in a large bowl.
   
4. In a separate smaller bowl whisk together the eggs and the buttermilk, whisk in the melted butter, and the lemon zest.
   
5. Pour the buttermilk mixture over the flour mixture and stir until just combined - try not to over mix.
   
6. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, pushing out toward the edges. Now drop the berries across top. You can smush them a bit between your fingers before letting them fall to the cake - no so perfect looking and the juices meld with the sugar.
   
7. Sprinkle with the large grain sugar and then the salt.
   
8. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until cake is set (or a toothpick in the center comes out clean), and a touch golden on top.

*Be sure to store in an air-tight container. I just stored it on the counter in the pan with tin foil on top and the cake was dried out in 3 days. Instead of throwing it away, we just warm it up in the microwave for about 20 seconds and that seemed to make it a little softer. The other day I had it warmed up with ice cream, and the creamy ice cream offset the dryness quite a bit.