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Blackberry Tea Cake is a special treat that you can enjoy in so many ways. It’s can be a delicious dessert, but since it’s not too sweet so you can have it for breakfast or an afternoon snack too!
Every week at our local farmers’ market I buy several pints of assorted berries for the kids to munch on at breakfast or lunch. If we don’t use them all up to top our Acai Bowls or in Berry Green Smoothies, we make Banana Berry Bread or Very Berry Muffins among many other delicious berry treats.
Chloe loves her berries, but when I offer her a mix, she always picks out the blackberries to eat first. Over the past few weeks, the blackberries have gotten even bigger and sweeter than usual, so I’ve been buying extra. I love using them to make smoothies, popsicles, in cereal or just to eat on their own, but coming up with a recipe for a cake for them to star in was really exciting and new for me.
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The best part about this Blackberry Tea Cake is that it isn’t too sweet, so you can happily enjoy it for breakfast, as an after school snack or even as a simple dessert — with tea (maybe Ginger Lemon Honey Tea) of course, though it’s not required! You could even serve it with a fun and delicious Bubble Tea. I didn’t actually get to test it out for all those different uses though since it didn’t stick around along enough!
In less than 24 hours, the cake I made completely disappeared. Granted, this Blackberry Tea Cake’s debut from my oven conveniently coincided with a gaggle of hungry kids that happened to be playing at our house, but it’s popularity only confirmed to me how special and unique this treat really is.
As always, let me know what you think of this recipe by tagging me on social media! I love seeing weelicious recipes in the wild!
Blackberry Tea Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 2 cups fresh blackberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Butter and flour a 13″ x 9″ baking dish.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
- In a standing mixer or bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy.
- On low speed, add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, milk, sour cream and zest.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet until combined.
- Place blackberries on the bottom of the dish and top with the batter.
- Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool for 20 minutes on top of a cooking rack then flip dish over for the cake to come out.
- Cut into squares and serve.
I made some substitutions for allergies and used wholesome’s organic brown sugar for the sugar as well as soy milk and yogurt for the milk and sour cream and grapeseed oil for the butter (I just cream it with the sugar longer) I did use eggs so this is not vegan. I also filled two 9″ round cake pans so we could freeze one for a party later…..supremely yummy! and perfect texture!
photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49754167@N00/5853514932
For everybody looking to make these dairy-free, soy yogurt can be subbed for the regular yogurt and unsweetened hemp milk can go in for regular milk. Try organic earth balance sticks for the butter. Many times coconut oil works well for butter, too. I would also use whole wheat pastry flour for the white.
I made these last night to bring to a breakfast play group. Of course, I had to taste one (or two or ten) to make sure they were edible. OMG! These are deelish!! I’ve already shared the recipe with a good friend. Thanks for a great recipe and a wonderful site. Cheers!
Is there any substitute for egg?? I’m planning to make it for a friend but she doesn’t eat eggs.
In the oven now! Wow is that some delicious batter!! I did half blackberry / raspberry . I also ran out of van extract and only had 1 tsp so I substituted with a squirt if honey. I wasn’t sure what else to use. Any ideas on what to use in the kitchen when you run out of vanilla extract?
I used only whole wheat and it turned out great!
What about subbing in some whole wheat flour? Do you think it would taste just as good?
I just used frozen strawberries and they did stay at the bottom of the cake, they did not lift up throughout the cake like in the picture above. They were also very soggy. Overall the cake is still a success, very tasty even though the appearance is not what I was expecting. Will be going with fresh berries next time! Hope this helps!
I just bought a package of frozen berries. Wonder if that would work??
Looking at my cake that just came out of the over, I wish I would have gently folded the berries into the batter instead of just putting them on the bottom of the pan because they didn’t go up at all like Catherine’s did and are only on the bottom instead of throughout the cake… just FYI… Still going to taste so good!!!
My berries were so huge that the batter barely covered them so it wasn’t a problem but if they were smaller that would definitely be a good idea.
I’m with Larissa! I just put the pan in the oven and the batter was soooo yummy – love the lemon zest in there!(Not gonna lie-have the reason for me to bake is to “test” the batter/dough 😉 Blackberries in Michigan have no flavor so I used raspberries and blueberries. Can’t wait to give the finished product a try!
I find that bringing the milk to room temperature or warmer prevented the “seperating”. After I added the dry ingredients, it didn’t matter anyway. My cake is cooling at waiting to be taste tested!
Yum! I couldn’t wait; just put this in the oven (with blueberries). For some reason, after I added the milk, my batter looked awfully (for lack of a better description) separated. Went ahead and baked it; we’ll see what happens! I only had 1% milk but I am not sure why that would make the batter look that way… Hope it turns out, it is just what I’ve had a taste for and my 7 year old is a blueberry maniac. Thanks for the recipe!
Yummy! I too love all berries. I save the blackberries for last if I have an assortment. I did have lots of berries this morning but I kept eating them and them put tons on my waffles. I need to go get more so I can make this! 🙂
Yes you can 🙂