Baking With Berries

• When you add ingredients to your cake batter for extra flavor or color, it's important to match the add-in to the cake. In a delicate angel-food cake anything heavier than sprinkles will quickly settle to the bottom. Dense pound cakes, on the other hand, can work well with almost any fruit or nut. Cake mixes usually have a relatively thin, wet batter and make a delicate cake, so adding blackberries or other heavy fruit can be problematic. However, you can use several techniques to keep the berries suspended in the cake.

Berries on Bottom

• One easy way to combine the aromatic, summery sweetness of blackberries with your favorite mix cake is to make an upside-down cake. Build a layer of blackberries on the bottom of your cake pan, sprinkled liberally with sugar and cornstarch or flour to help thicken the juices from the berries. As your cake bakes, the berries will cook down and their juices will thicken to a flavorful sauce. If you increase the quantity of berries, or decrease the amount of cake batter, the result will be a blackberry cobbler rather than a cake.

Berries on Top

• Heavy blackberries are prone to sink though the cake batter as it bakes, settling near the bottom. One technique for countering that tendency is not to counter it at all, but to take advantage of it. Mix up your batter as usual and pour it into the pans, then arrange your blackberries evenly on top. As the cake bakes the berries will sink into the softened batter, then stop as the batter begins to solidify in the oven's heat. It helps to toss the berries lightly with flour, which slows their tendency to sink and also helps thicken the blackberries' juice.

Frozen Berries

• Another method for keeping blackberries suspended in the cake is to start with frozen berries. Frozen berries are less prone to sinking, in part because they chill the batter around them and keep it firm. They also don't release their juices until they've thawed in the oven's heat, which minimizes their tendency to thin the batter. As with fresh berries, it's best to toss the frozen berries lightly with flour before incorporating them. Mix up the batter as you normally would, then lightly stir in the berries and pour the batter into the pan immediately. Don't use a mixer once the berries are added, or they'll break and discolor the batter.