Before they're gone: simple blackberry cake

Ragazzi,  as Elinor Wylie wrote "summer, much too beautiful to stay," and she is leaving us.  Annalena is sitting here wearing her  bright red sweatshirt (designed to prevent her from being shot, accidentally in the woods no doubt.  She cannot speak for intentional shooting), and feeling a bit chilled.   So, too, when she finished her four mile run today ("not without a struggle," as Paul Lynde once said), she was not covered head to toe with sweat. 
None of this, however, has anything to do with the issue of food.  But what follows does.  In his wonderful novel  "Dandelion Wine," the boys who are at the center of the work know that summer is ending when they see , in the general store window, notebooks, pencils and erasers, instead of tennis shoes and picnic kits.  OH, do they lament  .  And they take comfort in the fact that there are the bottles of dandelion wine, labelled by date, in the cellar, which will bring back memories of "the day" when the wine is sipped.

Bittersweet, yes?    So, too, is the transition from one type of eating to another.  One wants to yell BUT WAIT.  I DID NOT EAT ENOUGH PEACHES.  Or plums.  Or tomatoes.    So eat them while you can because, just like the notebooks in the window, the winter squashes, the apples, the pears, and the dark leafy greens and root vegetables, are displacing other things.   And of the "summer" crops that remain, well, they no longer have that "sunkissed" type of flavor.  Annalena noticed this in the berries this week, especially the blackberries, which were SO succulent and SO full of flavor, and are not a bit tart and asking for sugar.   And that, ragazzi, is why we are making blackberry cake today.

Blackberries are challenging to cook with .  Their flavor is evanescent, and it seems, at least to Annalena, that heat drives it off. So when she made this recipe,  she was surprised to find that the flavor deepened.  And when you are looking for something to deepen flavor, what could be better than a blackberry cake that is absurdly easy to do?  In fact, in making this, Annalena thought it very much resembled a plum cake she posted very l ong ago.   She will have to check.  In any event, here we go.  And there will be substitutions available.  So, cominciamo !

You start with your fruit:  two cups of blackberries.  This is two of the clamshells in which they are packed.  Put them aside (DON'T wash them!) and preheat your oven to 400.    Have a stick of butter out coming to room temperature.  You will only need half of it, but you will also have to grease your pan.  You will also need, to mix together, a cup of all purpose, unbleached flour, and a half teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda  (Should you lack one, Annalena gives you permission to double the one you have).  Add a pinch of salt as well.  Put this in a little bowl, at the side.

In a larger bowl, now combine the half stick of butter and 2/3 cup of plain white sugar.  Don't substitute here, because the brown sugar will overwhelm the blackberries.  Get a big wooden spoon and whip this until it's smooth, and light.  You COULD use a mixer here, but honestly, why would you?  There's not enough material here to justify it, and a big mixer can't handle a small amount of material.  Also, it will feel good to do something "a mano."    When it's mixed, add a large egg, and mix that, and then add a teaspoon of good quality vanilla.  Mix this all together.

Ok, now, just like with our blueberry cake, we are going to alternate adding the flour mixer, and some dairy:  half a cup.  Buttermilk, or yogurt, or clabbered milk (refer back, ragazzi), or even plain milk.  Flour/dairy/flour/dairy/flour   is the order you want, but don't fret about this if you don't do it right.  You want to do this quickly, as if you were making a biscuit batter.    Now, get a 9 inch pan, and grease it well.   Spoon the batter in and smooth it as well as you can.  Get those blackberries and scatter them across the top  (use another berry, or another sliced up fruit, if you just do not have the blackberries).  Finally, taste a blackberry.  You are going to need to add some sugar to the top of this cake, so you may as well taste to see if you will need more, than the 1.5 tablespoons Annalena recommends.  If they are particularly tart, up it to two tablespoons.    Get it into the oven, and be prepared to bake for at least an hour, maybe an hour and a quarter (This is a VERY difficult cake to "read" ragazzi.   Annalena has made versions of it for years, and the timing is always different).  When  you can snatch the pebble from my hand.

Oh, wait. That's Kung Fu.  Sorry.  When you can put a knife in the center of the cake and it comes out clean, you're done. 

Let this cool.  Don't try to get it out of the pan.  It does NOT like that.  Eat it quickly.  It can probably handle room temperature storage in a cool temperature, for about 2 days.  Then it gets nasty.  REALLY nasty.

We shall be moving to other , more autumnal dishes very soon, ragazzi, so if there is anything that Annalena has posted this summer which particularly catches your fancy, let her know.  OR, if there is something you are  hankering for, recipe wise, that you don't see, please tell her.  You never know what the lady has up her... sleeve