Blackberry Jam Cake

This year for Christmas, I received a brand-new bundt pan from a dear old friend of mine. I also received gift basket full of fancy Maine jams/jellies from an editor. I'm not a big jam/jelly type of person, so I knew it would take me literally years to go through what was sent. So of course, the first thing I thought of was to find a recipe or two to use up these jams! I remembered Peabody's lovely Purple Haze jam cake post from a few months back, and thought it would be a good place to start. There was a nice big jar of blackberry-peach preserves sitting in that gift basket…

I took Peabody's recipe, but exchanged the granulated sugar for dark brown sugar. I also halved it, since (1) I had my fancy new (6-inch) bundt pan and (2) there's no way Hubs and I are eating a whole big bundt cake by ourselves. So make note, the recipe below won't fill a regular (10-inch) bundt pan.

I rather like this with the brown sugar, it gives the cake a deep flavor and almost crispy-sugar taste. I love how the spices brought out a warm, wintery flavor in the preserves. And of course, that icing is easy on the eyes :) Next time I'll be sure to heed Peabody's advice, and strain the preserves before adding it to the cake. The crunchiness from the blackberry seeds was an unexpected surprise!

Blackberry Jam Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 c. packed dark brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 c. cake flour

3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

Pinch of salt

1/2 tsp. fresh nutmeg

1/4 c. sour cream

1 c. blackberry preserves

Preheat oven to 300 F. Butter and flour a 6- or 7-inch bundt pan.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and scrape down the bowl after each egg. Add the vanilla a beat for another 30 seconds.

Sift together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking soda. Add to butter mixture alternately with sour cream, beating after each addition. Fold in the blackberry preserves.

Pour into bundt pan. Bake at 300 F for 10 minutes. Increase heat to 350 F, and bake until done (20-30 minutes). Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to finish cooling.

If you want to make the glaze: simply heat up some jam. Remove the jam from the heat when it has melted and whisk in powdered sugar until you reach a consistency you are happy with.