02 January 2008

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.

8 comments:

Deborah said...

Ohh, this looks delicious. I love the color!

Peabody said...

Oh I will have to try it with brown sugar. My mom got very experimental with the jam this year so I think I am going to try it with a new flavor.
Turned out great...I think you and I have the same mini bundt pans.

slush said...

OMG does that look heavenly! Your photos are perfect. Absolutely perfect. The cake sounds to die for.

Anonymous said...

Wow! That color is extraordinary! Besides the fact that it sounds delicious, I want to make it for guests based on the color alone.

Emily said...

I actually got really excited when I visited your blog, today, because this summer I was obsessed with jam cakes. Well, not obsessed, but I think I made like 4 of them.
Your's looks so pretty! The color!

My family hates blackberry seeds, but they don't bother me too much. I guess I'm a "seedy" person. Ha ha.

rhid said...

The colour is stunning!

perto said...

This is delicious because we can prepare a lot of recipes with this jam, not only to put it on the cakes but also to adding it to the bread, and if you add or Buy Viagra to add to the recipe it will be perfect.

Archie Pavia said...

Very useful information indeed. such a wonderful blog is this must say hats off to writer found many interesting ideas and thoughts in it. Really appreciate the effort your putting into all this distribution of knowledge here with us. -- denver hotels cherry creek