Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Lemon Blackberry Coffee Cake

This year for my grandma's birthday, my mom covered the cake.  You can read about the cake massacre of 2011 here.  She got a recipe from Better Homes & Gardens, and tweaked it a little.  The original recipe calls for raspberries, but they're super expensive right now, so she used blackberries instead.  It was so incredibly delicious!

Lemon Blackberry Coffee Cake:

  • 1 1/2 cups flour 
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt 
  • 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar 
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened 
  • 2 eggs 
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla 
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk 
  • 3 ounces cream cheese, softened 
  • 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest 
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen blackberries


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch cake pan. Line with parchment. Grease and lightly flour parchment and sides of pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat 1 cup granulated sugar and butter on medium speed until combined. Add 1 egg and vanilla. Beat on low 1 minute. Alternately add dry ingredients to batter with buttermilk, beating just until combined after each addition.

In a small bowl, beat cream cheese and remaining 1/4 cup sugar on medium speed until combined. Add lemon zest and remaining egg. Beat until combined.

Spoon half of cake batter into prepared pan, spreading to the edges. Pour cream cheese mixture over cake batter, spreading to the edges. Dollop remaining batter over cream cheese layer, carefully spreading to edges.

Bake 20 minutes, or until puffed. Gently press raspberries into cake. Bake 25 to 30 minutes more or until a toothpick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool.

Serves 10.  (Per serving: 309 calories; 5 g protein; 43 g carbohydrates; 1 g fiber; 14 g fat; 72 mg cholesterol; 302 mg sodium.)

This is such a great summer dessert.  I highly recommend it.  I didn't try it the first day we had it, but I had some of the left overs and it kept very well!

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Ten on Ten :: April 2012

Ten on Ten: Take a photo every hour for ten consecutive hours on the tenth of each month. Document a day of your life and find beauty among the ordinary moments. Then share your beauty with us! 

Today marks the one year anniversary of one of my favorite Ten on Ten's.  Definitely in the top five.  Check out April 2011, here.












Link up here.

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Fresh Mint & Watermelon Soda Floats

I've been doing some behind the scenes stuff on TFATO, and I realized I never posted about a sweet summer treat that Cady and I made last summer.  It was obviously pretty memorable if I remembered it almost a year later, so take notes people!  I got the recipe from How Sweet It Is, a great food blog.


Fresh Mint & Watermelon Soda Floats:

  • 2 1/2 cups fresh watermelon chunks (large seeds removed, the small white ones are fine)
  • 12-15 fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
  • 12 ounces club soda or carbonated water of choice
  • vanilla ice cream

In a blender, combine the watermelon, mint and water. Blend and pulse quickly, just until watermelon has broken down – this should only take about 30-60 seconds or so. The blending will “de-carbonate” the water a bit, but it should still have some fizz. Pour mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl, glass or measuring cup in order to remove the seeds. Fill two glasses with vanilla ice cream and pour watermelon soda over top. Garnish with additional fresh mint.

This recipe serves two.

It's definitely been warm here lately and that's got me itching for summer.  I can't wait to sit out on the back porch with one of these and a good book!

Picture from the original post, here.