Great Grandma’s Blackberry Cake You Need to Try

by:
July 29, 2024

source: PaperPonies/rediit

” My grandma (90) and my family live on a small farm in the rural south; the land has been in our family for generations. Wild blackberry bushes grow in the pastures, so every year it’s tradition to pick the berries and make jelly/jam, cobblers, pies, etc. My grandma is always telling stories of her childhood and one day she mentioned how her mom used to make the most delicious jam cake for her birthday, and how she missed the treat since it was only made once a year. She said that the cake always made her feel so special because not only was it her favorite but she could choose how big of a slice she wanted. My grandma can’t cook much anymore so I asked if she had the recipe. She explained that most of her mother’s recipes were destroyed in a house fire. Back to square one. I figured the cake was like the jam pound cakes popular in KY, but when my grandma described it, it was NOTHING like it. She described a fluffy cake with the jam in the batter, no spices, no nuts or coconut, and the frosting was actual icing and not a glaze. I couldn’t find much on jam cakes that weren’t KY style, so I proceeded to combine a few different recipes to make three failed cakes (using store bought jam haha, not sorry) before I FINALLY got the right combination. In her birthday cake I used jam we made together last summer. The look on her face when she saw it is a memory I’ll treasure forever! She said I couldn’t beat her mother, but I was pretty darn close.”

source: PaperPonies/reddit

Recipe

“Ok, y’all, the way my grandma taught me how to cook is called hand cooking, or ‘spoon dump’ cooking. Basically I have a habit of not measuring things exactly, using my hands as measuring devices, and eyeballing everything until it ‘looks right’ and ‘tastes right’. Baking is often considered an exact science but if you were taught hand cooking from the start and bake a lot it’s easier to do. I swear I started out measuring stuff so I’d have the recipe later but my brain switched over halfway through, darn thing. This ramble is all a disclaimer to say that the following recipe is me somewhat guessing what I did because honestly past-tense me didn’t write everything down like she was supposed to and lost count a couple of times. Silly girl, when will she learn? When I have time and hungry mouths I will trial and error the recipe until I have exact measurements for you all to remove the guesswork and have a perfect cake every time. This recipe should work just fine but I tweak stuff on the fly so take it with a grain of salt. (AKA don’t hate me if yours doesn’t come out perfectly the first go around.)”

  • 1 C granulated sugar
  • ½ C butter
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 (or 1½) C seedless blackberry jam
  • ½ cup buttermilk
  • 1½ (or 1¾)  C AP Flour
  • ¾ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt

Use your go-to cake mixing techniques, you guys know what you’re doing I don’t think I have to type it out haha. 325 degree oven.

For icing I recommend a less sweet variety such as cream cheese, but use your favorite. Cooking is all about making it YOURS.”
source: PapperPonies/reddit

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