The Best Sweet Treat for Summer | Easy Berry Snack Cake Recipe | Anna Olson

Hi everyone, well it's berry season here and I've got a fantastic recipe to share with you. It is for my easy berry snack cake and it starts with a streusel topping because with all those berries, well you need something that helps absorb some of the juices from the fruit. So I'm going to start off by making that streusel with a combination of flour and sugar and I do like to put in a pinch of cinnamon. I don't want so much cinnamon that it overwhelms but just adds a little nuance of flavor. And I've just taken my butter from the fridge. Let me just give this a little stir first before I grate in the butter. I do like to use a pastry blender for my streusel and I'll use my box grater to grate in the cold butter. That way it takes no time to work in. As with all my recipe videos here on Oh Yum, you'll find the complete recipe right below the window. When you see the see more you just click on that and it opens up to the full recipe. So I'm just cutting in the butter, twisting the pastry blender. You can use two knives if you want. If you feel so inclined you could mix this in a food processor but the cake batter is mixed by hand so that's just an extra tool to wash. And don't be afraid to get in there with your fingers and really do that final working in of the butter. I tried this streusel once using melted butter and it made the streusel just too clumpy where starting with the cold butter allows you to work it in more evenly. And I stopped mixing with my hands when it starts to hold together and create the little streusel-y pieces. Still a bit crumbly right now. There's see how it's starting to hold together and create some slightly larger pieces. All right I'll set that aside and now it's time to make the batter which is an easy mix your wet ingredients, sift the dry on top and you are done. So I'll start with my sugar. I'll crack in two eggs. I add a little bit of neutral oil combined with melted butter. The melted butter is for flavor, the oil is to give the batter some sort of stretchy tenderness. It helps keep it fresher a little bit longer. That was just a little bit of vanilla and now some lemon zest. I've whisked it just so when I add my butter which is still warm I don't hit the eggs directly and cook it. The sugar protects everything. There we go in goes the butter. There, super quick. I already have my dry ingredients measured and it's simply all-purpose flour, baking powder and a little bit of salt. So I'm going to sift it right over top. The flour, the baking powder and the salt. This makes a really soft batter so you can continue with your whisk and you can whisk it until it's nice and smooth. It's a relatively small measurement of flour in proportion to the other ingredients and so you won't find you over develop the proteins in the flour. Sometimes with muffin batter which can be a little more dense, more flour, more of an opportunity to over mix and end up with a tough muffin but not with this recipe. This snack cake makes a 9 by 13 inch pan. You can use a metal pan if you wish but this is one of those cakes that you leave in the pan. You leave it on the counter with the knife in the pan and that's the idea. You just go in and take a little piece, a bit of a snack but it's fancy enough you could serve as a plated dessert. Now something that may surprise you is you'll realize when you pour this batter into your pan it doesn't look like a whole lot of batter but it does double in volume when it bakes so just trust the recipe. I'll just let it settle into place you don't have to spread it at all and now let's talk about the fruits. I mentioned earlier it's berry season here so I want to celebrate fresh local berries but this is a cake that suits any sort of soft tender fruit. I love stone fruits so it could be peaches that you peel and slice, nectarines you don't even have to peel them just slice them, apricot halves, Italian prune plums just cut them in half take out the pit and drop them on top of the batter but in the case of the berries I'm using blueberries and raspberries. If it's not berry season where you are you can use frozen. I do recommend baking them directly from frozen but toss them with a couple tablespoons of flour that way that factors in the extra juice that frozen berries tend to generate. These berries come from a local grower near us called Brian Farms and they do delicious raspberries. Their strawberries are incredible. There we go so I did put the blueberries on the bottom just without thinking but because they let off less liquid than the raspberries they're sort of the insulation between the juicy raspberries that the juices will be absorbed by the streusel and the blueberries will sort of rest in the cake batter and settle into place as they bake and with all that fresh fruit now you see the need for all this oh there we go just go right on top all the need for this streusel there we go. The cake's ready for the oven I've preheated it to 350 and if you're baking this in a metal pan it will take 45 to 55 minutes. Now an important point I'm baking in ceramic. Ceramic does not conduct heat it takes longer to heat up and then heat the batter within it so it can take an added 10 to 15 minutes to your bake time for your cake to be done. You check the doneness use a skewer when it comes free of any crumbs when you insert it in the center of the cake of course you'll get some berry juices on there you know you're ready to go. And here is that cake out of the oven you can really see how it came up and kind of around the fruit it just sort of hugs the fruit and holds it in place. Finishing touch that's nice a little icing sugar find it highlights the texture of the streusel there we go and it doesn't need to be any fancier than that. If you want to dress it up you could throw on a scoop of ice cream but look at all those delicious berries inside you've got the cake beneath and around it a whole lot of sweet crunchy streusel what a perfect snack cake. I hope you'll give this easy berry snack cake a try and I'll see you again soon for another delicious recipe. So good.