Mixed Berry Bundt Cake

Summer's here and all the awesome fresh local fruit inspired me to bake something yummy with it.  It was a difficult task to use them in a cake because we loooooove fresh fruit and we were all picking at the berries and eating them as I was washing them and setting them on a towel to dry.
Raspberries are my favorite but for some reason they are hard to find.  The raspberry farm I go to around here (Granny's Berry Patch on 421 outside of Valpo) lost her entire red raspberry crop this year.  Bummer!  I bought a package of them at Costco and was pleasantly surprised at how fresh and sweet they were!  Not a mushy one in the entire package.  Blueberries are always a nostalgic favorite because I grew up in Demotte, Indiana where the blueberry is king.  Well, maybe they're queen- we also have tons of corn farms there as well.  Corn is probably king.  And of course it's the best sweetcorn in the state (I'm looking at you , Sue Postma!!!!)  Anyway, people say that my current hometown, Plymouth, is the blueberry capitol but I ain't hearin' that.  I drive myself all the way back to Demotte to pick those big, juicy, God-fearing Dutch berries.  There's a difference people.  There's a difference.

I haven't blogged in a while and I'm a bit out of practice so I don't have the big group photo of all my ingredients.  So just pretend.

First, preheat your oven to 325.  Oops, I actually set my oven to 350 out of habit and had to put a piece of foil on top of the cake after about 40 minutes to keep it from getting too brown on top.

Wash the berries and set them out on a towel to dry.  The raspberries were really big so I ended up slicing them in half lengthwise.  I also quartered the strawberries.  I used heaping cups of each berry because when it comes to these guys, more is more!


A tip- I always crack my eggs into a little bowl before adding to my batter.  Sometimes little bits of shell get in and it's difficult to get them out.  This way you dont' have to worry about a bit of shell getting into your food.  This bundt takes five eggs.  Oy!


Combine your eggs and sugar.



Add your butter and liqueur.  Beat until fluffy.  Bleh with the egg goo hanging off the beater.



Ok, I didn't have "kirsch fruit liqueur" so I used some peach schnapps.  Is that ghetto?  I don't even know.  But I do know that when I tasted the batter it was REALLY good!  So go ahead you ghetto queens- use your peach schnapps in this cake.  (mine still has the 'Rat Poison' label I stuck on it from a Halloween party, hee-hee)

(By the way, there is no brown sugar in this recipe. It's just sitting on the counter because it's a seven pound bag that i bought from Costco.  Who has room in their cabinets for a seven pound bag of brown sugar?!?  Gotta find a place to stash that...)


Add the dry ingredients.  Beat this thing until well incorporated and there are no humps, no humps.  No lovely cakey lumps.



Toss the berries with the reserved flour.  It keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the cake.  Don't ask me why.  I don't know.  It's just science.



Be a good little girl and scrape yer bowl.  Get a spoon and eat some ghetto batter.


Ever so gently fold in those berries.



Pour into your pan.  This pan is flower-shaped and better than yours.



Bake it 60+ minutes until it looks like this.



Let it cool for about 20 minutes in the pan so it doesn't fall apart.  Then invert it on a cooling rack.  Pretty, eh?



Hit it with some powdered sugar.



Eat it up, yum.  Tanner (my youngest) said it tasted really good but the raspberries "look like Butter's butthole."  Really, I should have stopped at one child.  But nooooooo, Reid insisted on two.  *sigh*
p.s. My dog's butt does NOT look like a cooked, halved raspberry.



Cleanup on this one was not too bad.  Only a few bowls and stuff used.

Mixed Berry Bundt Cake

5 eggs

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 1/4 cups butter, room temp, cut into small pieces

2 TBSP kirsch or other fruit liqueur

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup raspberries

1 cup blueberries

1 cup strawberries

powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 325.  Butter and flour a 9-inch bundt pan.  Blend eggs and sugar in mixer.  Add butter and liqueur and beat until fluffy.  Add the baking powder, salt and all but 2 tablespoons of the flour and beat until well incorporated and no lumps remain.

In another bowl, toss berries with the 2 tablespoons of flour until evenly coated.  Gently fold the berries into the batter.

Pour batter into the prepared pan.  Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes clean (about an hour).  Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 20-25 min.  Unmold the cake onto a rack to cool completely.

Dust the top of the cake with powdered sugar.  Serve at room temp.