Salt and Stone: Blackberry Upside Down Cake

A friend gifted me several pounds of blackberries from her garden this week. After eating half of them the first night -- everyone in the family grabbing handfuls every time we walked through the kitchen, chuckling at our purple-stained fingers -- I sneakily hid the rest in order to make something special.

Blackberry bushes are almost (but most definitely not) weeds around here. The prickly bushes grow rampantly around the Valley, lining country roadsides, climbing up hills like vines and taking over empty spaces. It takes a little bit of work to pick blackberries, especially if you’re picking them along a roadside, because those probably aren’t the thorn-free variety. But a sweet, tart, freshly picked blackberry (still warm from the sun) is worth a few pokes. Better yet, if you have a friend with a patch or happen upon a berry stand at the farmers market, you get all the reward without any of the work.

Ripe blackberries signal the subtle shift from summer to fall. The last of the berries to come into harvest, their timing is perfect to pair with in-season peaches, pears and eventually apples. As I sit here, typing away, the school bus driving past my house catches my eye, likely driving its route, preparing for schoolchildren to fill it up in the next couple of days.

With lots of change on the horizon and a new school year descending, the excited jitters are ever-present around my house. A special treat seemed like just the thing to celebrate all that’s coming up. Our back-to-school tradition is pretty simple. A day or two before the start of a new school year, we make a special dinner of all the kids' favorite foods. Some years its hot dogs and chips and other years its a bit fancier because one of the kids remembers they also love steak, fresh bread and strawberry shortcake. Regardless of what they choose to eat, we sit on the back patio with our special meal and talk and laugh about our favorite memories from the summer. It’s light and casual; sometimes we talk about the upcoming school year, but mostly we just hang out. We always end the meal with a special treat and those blackberries I hid away seemed perfect.

After seeing a photo of an upside-down cake made with blueberries, I set out to make a blackberry version. Blackberries are lightly sugared and then gently smooshed into the bottom of a cake pan. A simple vanilla butter cake batter tops the blackberries and is baked until golden brown and the blackberries are perfectly jammy and sweet. A little dusting of raw sugar gives the topping a slight sugared crust texture, and a big dollop of vanilla ice cream finishes off the perfect summer-send-off dessert.

3 large eggs

3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 cup sugar, divided

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 spring-fresh thyme leaves* (optional)

3 1/4 cups fresh blackberries

1 tablespoon raw sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 10-inch round cake pan with cooking spray and parchment paper. Set aside. (If you only have a 9-inch cake pan, that’s fine, just don’t fill the pan all the way to the top. You will have a little leftover batter with which you could make a cupcake or two, or just toss it).

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. When the butter melts, set aside to cool slightly.

In a large bowl combine the eggs, Greek yogurt and 3/4 cup granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Whisk to combine. Stir in the vanilla extract and then pour the melted butter into the batter, whisking vigorously. In a separate small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Whisk to combine. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and stir gently until just combined. Strip the thyme leaves from the stem and add to the batter.

Combine the blackberries with the remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar. Stir to combine, then press the blackberries into an even layer along the bottom of the cake pan. You should not see any cake pan underneath the blackberries. It’s OK to smoosh them a bit to make one even layer.

Pour the cake batter over the berries and place on the center rack of the oven. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool.

Once the cake has cooled, place a plate over the cake and gently flip upside down, gently lifting the cake pan away from the plate to release the cake. Sprinkle the tablespoon of raw sugar over the blackberries. Serve slices of cake with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

• Andrea McCoy’s Salt and Stone column and recipes appear weekly in Explore.

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