A Very Berry Cake

No, don’t judge this cake with the cakes available at pastry shop or by many talented food bloggers who do really make beautiful , breath-taking cakes. This is our, read – mother and daughter’s joint effort. A fun Saturday evening was spent like this. We fought over who will do the cake decorations, and finally we settled on half her way through and half mine.But it all got jumbled up later on, in pursue of utilizing the vacant space.Every vacant space needed some real decorations. And we are no pro – let’s admit it very frankly.Well ok this is our first joint effort in cake decorations.We are then even not amateurs perhaps novice yes.

I had some raspberry and strawberry which I was thinking to use up, other than with yogurt like this   with breakfast cereals. So decided to bake this very very Cake, berry –berry cake – hmm ok... Very Berry Cake instead of.

Somehow decorating a cake with a cone- paper cone, requires quite lot of patience which we both don’t have. And we end up doing this cake in record 15 mints. So, you can see many mingling lines. But again it’s the cake which has its own story. Few days ago when I was putting the ingredients together for this cake I was in a hurry , and so didn't measured the flour or sugar, just went with instinct, looking at the batter I knew I needed  to make two cakes, as I have two small round cake tins. But whatever, I was net surfing then and was reading something interesting and also it was soon going to be dinner time. So, I end up dunking all the batter in one small cake tin pan. While baking the cake, it started overflowing, dropping and spilling over in oven. I didn't mind it, after the baking time I took out the cake, it was baked well, smelled nice but it would have been better if I had gone through making it in two small rounds instead of big one round cake. There wouldn't have been such wastage. So, bottom-line is never mix two things especially cooking and net-surfing.
OK, now if you have Bundt cake pan, it can precisely hold on the amount of batter. Thumb rule is leave about quarter of the cake tin pan and fill only ¾ part or better half part with the cake batter. This is how I have measured the cake batter while baking cakes over these years, but somehow on that day everything just skipped my mind. Anyways we always learn from our mistakes and faults so that we don’t repeat it again. The recipe written down is revised version of that cake, but the pictures are from that spilling cake.The cake was moist and soft and had a very pleasing smell of strawberry.So you know the result , when you try making a berry cake and that too with strawberry.
I am always little skeptical of using colors in baking etc...But sometimes it’s good to let yourself just be free of it . We both – me and DD had a great time decorating this cake.
Here even after done with the cake, somebody is still practicing the art of decorating a cake with a cone.

I think at least somebody will be better than her mother is, in decorating cakes. What say?
Now to the recipe-

Very Berry Cake – Raspberry/Strawberry Cake
Recipe Requirements (measurements are approx)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup of self raising flour
½ cup of cooking oil
1 free range egg
¾ cup of white sugar granulated
1 cup of chopped raspberry
1 cup of chopped strawberry
¾ cup of organic strawberry yogurt
½ tsp of baking soda

Method
Mix in dry ingredients in a mixing bowl- all purpose flour+self raising flour, and baking soda.
Then in a separate bowl, mix in oil and sugar very well.
Add in egg, then followed by strawberry yogurt. Purpose of adding strawberry yogurt is to add the flavor of berries even more. If you don’t have strawberry yogurt, you can make it in home – in about a 1 cup of plain yogurt, add in 5-6 fresh strawberry, adjust sugar and then pulse through in a mixer for half a minute. And again if you don’t like tiny seeds of strawberry...Mash some fully ripened strawberry, pass this over small strainer, and collect the seeds from the strainer. Add this cleaned strawberry paste to the yogurt and mix it with spoon.
Sprinkle some sugar over chopped strawberry and raspberry.Sprinkle some flour as well.
Mix all the ingredients – dry one and wet ones both.Add in chopped berries.
Prepare the cake tin.spray some cooking oil, dust some flour and tap it gently to even out the surface.
Preheat an oven at 175 deg, bake the cake for 35-40 mints or till a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
Take out , let it cool, flip the cake and place it over a plate.Now cut into half with a sharp knife , here comes baking two cakes with the batter part.If you go ahead and make two cakes then there is no need to cut into the half along the sides.Just tier it up over the other.However I didn't make two so , here is one cake , cut along sides to half.

Prepare the icing -
About 3/4 cup of cream or Elmea double
3 tbs of icing sugar
few drops of liquid,  food red colour

Mix all very well cream and icing sugar ,till soft peak forms.Reserve some for decorating the cake.Add the colour to the reserved icing and mix well.
Put rest of the icing over the half  portion, place the other half , then put the icing again top over it.Let it chill for couple of hours in fridge.Take out once it's set.
Make a paper cone with a grease proof paper or may use a transparent plastic, seal the end with tape.Fill in with coloured icing , then cut a small opening at the tip .Start working with the cone and decorate the cake.

Note-
This cake is made with more strawberry than raspberry; however there is no hard and fast rule of adding fruits to the cake. You may use other berries as well.

Happy Cooking and Have a nice weekend...