Raspberry Cake with Fudge Frosting
This cake is dense, not overly sweet, and has just a hint of raspberry from the jam. The fudge frosting is incredibly chocolatey. Both of them would be incredibly good on their own or married with other flavors, but they work really well together here. Based on two different cakes in Layered.
Servings: 12 -20 slices
Ingredients
Brown Sugar Buttermilk Raspberry Cake
- 2 ¼ cup (295 g) cake flour*
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter at room temperature
- ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons (190 g) firmly packed brown sugar
- ½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 ½ tablespoons raspberry puree deseeded ,or jam**
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 1 large egg yolk
- ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons 210 ml buttermilk
Raspberry Filling
- ¼ cup raspberry jam
Fudge Frosting
- 1 ½ cups (340 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 5 ½ cups (690 g) confectioner's sugar
- ½ cup (50 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup (60 ml) heavy cream or milk
- 8 ounces (225 g) semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled***
Instructions
Brown Sugar Buttermilk Raspberry Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC). Grease and flour three 8-inch⋇ cake pans, set aside.
- Sift or stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Using a mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth. Add the sugars and the raspberry jam**. Turn speed up to medium high, continue mixing until the butter mixture is fluffy and lighter in color, about 3-5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl.
- On medium-low speed, add the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time, then the egg yolk, scraping down the bowl after each addition.
- Alternate addition of the flour and buttermilk on low speed in three stages, beginning and ending with the flour. Once dry ingredients are just incorporated, turn mixer speed up to medium and mix no more than 30 seconds.
- Evenly divide the batter into the prepared pans and bake about 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the sides of the cake begin to pull away from the pan.
- Let cool in the pan on a metal rack for at least 10-15 minutes, then turn the cake out onto the cooling rack to finish cooling.
Assembly
- Once cake is completely cool, level them (if you want) and choose bottom layer. Place on serving dish.
- Spread about 1-2 tablespoons of raspberry jam in a thin layer across the top of the bottom layer.
- Top with ¾ cup to 1 cup of the fudge frosting, gently smoothly on the frosting so as not to disturb the jam underneath.
- Place the second layer of cake on top, repeat the layer of jam and layer of frosting.
- Place the final layer of cake on top, then use the remaining frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake, filling in any gaps between the layers. This frosting spreads really well, and you shouldn't need to bother with applying a crumb coat first.
Fudge Frosting
- Using a mixer, beat the butter until smooth and creamy.
- Gradually add the confectioner's sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt while running the mixer on low.
- Pour in the cream and continue mixing until fully incorporated.
- Increase to medium-high speed and mix until frosting is fluffy and looks whipped, which should take a couple minutes.
- Scrape down the bowl, add the chocolate, mix until smooth.
Notes
*If you don't have cake flour, replace 2 tablespoons of each cup of flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch (so here you would use 2 cups minus 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour, plus 5 tablespoons cornstarch)
**The original recipe is for a blood orange cake and calls for the equivalent amount of blood orange zest.
***I actually used Nutella instead of semisweet chocolate when I made this. It was good, but honestly you couldn't really taste the Nutella in the final frosting so it seemed like a huge waste of Nutella (which is a tragedy).
⋇If you don't have an 8-inch cake pan, you can easily make this recipe in whatever cake pan sizes you do have. Just follow Alice Medrich's advice on converting the recipe or look to this post from Allrecipes for guidance.
**The original recipe is for a blood orange cake and calls for the equivalent amount of blood orange zest.
***I actually used Nutella instead of semisweet chocolate when I made this. It was good, but honestly you couldn't really taste the Nutella in the final frosting so it seemed like a huge waste of Nutella (which is a tragedy).
⋇If you don't have an 8-inch cake pan, you can easily make this recipe in whatever cake pan sizes you do have. Just follow Alice Medrich's advice on converting the recipe or look to this post from Allrecipes for guidance.