A few years ago, I received a recipe for a simple fruit-topped cake known as Cup o’. The email ended with, “I wager my mom made 1000 of these when we were youngsters.”
The straight-up recipe starts with melting a stick of butter inside the oven within the cake pan (simpler to grease the pan), then pouring the liquid butter right into a bowl with a cup of flour, a cup of milk, and a cup of sugar, plus a perfect amount of baking powder. Once these ingredients are stirred collectively and scraped into the pan, an insurrection of summertime fruit is dumped on the pinnacle, and the cake bakes into both a pudding-like shape, heat and gooey, or a more impregnable cake with well-browned edges, absolutely dependent on the quantity of time it spends in the oven.
I made the cake in some instances and preferred it well sufficient. However, it turned into the close, no longer the deal with the concept it could be. I was much less keen on the pudding shape and more entranced with the one’s crispy edges. I got to work and made this cake for my personal use, one supposed for the potluck table. In the past month, I doled out this cake to buddies, the circle of relatives, individuals, workmen, and shortly-to-be-neighbors, creating a dozen variations until it reached, in my mind, its full ability.
From the outset, I knew I desired this to be a buttermilk cake. Buttermilk from my neighborhood dairy is thick and creamy and glugs out of the bottle. For this cake, the buttermilk from the grocery store works as well. However, the thicker version makes a cake with a barely greater wet and gentle crumb.
Changing from whole milk to buttermilk inside the unique cake meant adjusting the leavening from baking powder to baking soda (unlike milk, buttermilk no longer wants the cream of tartar, an acidic element in baking powder, to activate the leavening), and I fiddled with the amount of, nicely, the entirety else. I brought eggs. I upped the flour. I changed the ratio of fruit to the batter. And I modified the pan size. The result is a truly muffin-like cake reminiscent of pound cake, a little like an espresso cake.
I used some fruit that was reachable to top the cake. I mixed berries. I used white and yellow peaches. I stirred collectively sweet and bitter cherries. Any fruit suits the bill and scents the cake while it bakes.
This is a cake that any baker will want to make their own. I know because I gave the recipe to two friends, and they each changed it up. I used vanilla to add a heady scent to the cake; however, my friend Gail used almond extract. When I introduced cinnamon, I thought it overwhelmed the fruit’s flavor and the tang of the buttermilk; however, Abbie added nutmeg and changed it into glad. I assume cardamom might be delicious, too.
Here is your new pass-to-summer cake. Make it as soon as possible. I suspect you may make it repeatedly, as I have. Slice the cake into big square slabs; nobody will whinge if their piece has a scoop of ice cream snuggling up next to it. Around right here, we have been calling it breakfast cake with no guilt. And if there may be buttermilk leftover, it makes delicious biscuits, is a terrific bird brine, and is a great sipping drink on a hot day, or so said, my grandfather.
Buttermilk Sheet Cake with Peaches and Blueberries
If you don’t have a stand mixer, a hand mixer and a massive bowl will work.
Make beforehand: Cover the cake tightly and keep it at the counter for approximately three days.
Makes 15 to 20 servings
16 tablespoons (226 grams; 2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature, plus more for the pan
3 cups (360 g) flour
half teaspoon (3 g) baking soda
half tsp (three g) kosher salt or exceptional sea salt
2 cups (four hundred g) sugar
Three huge eggs at room temperature
half tsp vanilla extract
1 cup nicely shaken buttermilk, ideally complete-fats
three peeled, pitted peaches, sliced 1/2-inch thick (approximately 2 cups; see notice)
1 cup (one hundred fifty g) blueberries
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 9-by using-13-inch baking pan with parchment paper so the two shorter aspects overhang a bit (for lifting the cake out of the pan.) Grease the paper with a bit of butter.
Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
Combine the sixteen tablespoons of butter and the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer; beat on medium speed for three to four minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs separately, blending nicely after each addition. Scrape down the bowl every so often.
Add the vanilla extract to the buttermilk and stir to mix. At low speed, alternately upload the flour aggregate and the buttermilk mixture in 3 additions, ending with the flour and blending till it is barely integrated. Use a flexible spatula to gently fold the batter a piece greater using your hand, scraping the lowest of the bowl to paint in any residual dry elements. Scrape it into the organized pan once the batter appears mixed without white streaks. Smooth the pinnacle with an offset spatula.
Arrange peach slices on the top and scatter the blueberries evenly over the peaches. Bake (middle rack) for about one hour (begin checking after 50 to 55 mins) until the cake is golden brown on the rims and starts pulling away from the sides. The batter will blow his trumpet over the fruit; once the cake cools, it’ll deflate a piece.
Transfer to a cord rack to chill completely (in the pan). Lift the cake when the parchment paper is used up, discard the paper, and cut it into 15 to 20 squares.
Note: To peel peaches, plunge them into boiling water for 30 to 45 seconds, then use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a bowl of ice water. As soon as they’re cool enough to handle, slip off the skins—the riper the peach, the less time it desires in the boiling water.
