Raspberry Whole-Wheat Butter Cake

I hate to brag, but on the first day back in my kitchen after six weeks, I whipped up one of the best cakes I’ve ever made, or ate, in my life. I know, I know- this is a bold statement. But I swear it’s not just because it was the first cake I ate after six weeks on a liquid diet. I have a third party validator who agrees that this cake is utterly magical.

I’ll take a step back. Last Thursday, I was cleared to start chewing again, on really soft foods (scrambled eggs are my best friend right now). I’d earmarked this cake months ago, in late spring, before my surgery and berry season, and the one thing I really craved during my six weeks away from solid food was the texture of baked goods. I was really looking forward to making this on my first day back in the kitchen.

So the cake had a lot riding on it. Intuitively, I knew it would be good because it has the word “butter” in its title, and 2 sticks of it in the recipe. But I was also intrigued, because it uses three types of flour (whole wheat and almond, in addition to all-purpose) and wheat germ, a throwback to healthy phases of my childhood that I hadn’t revisited in a long time. I collected the ingredients on Thursday evening (doing a real grocery shop after a month and a half was like going to the carnival and riding all the rides) and set out to tackle this cake on Friday late afternoon.

I’ll first say that this is so, so easy. It’s a lot of batter, so while you can use a hand mixer you’d need a really enormous bowl to hold this. I used the stand mixer. It’s your standard cake batter, dry ingredients in one bowl, cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla, then the dry. Stir just to incorporate. But then- it goes into the 10-inch pan and is covered with fresh raspberries.

This is one of those moments where it’s hard to do something justice with mere words, but the smell of this cake baking might have been the single most incredible smell in the history of my kitchen. Raspberries and butter, oh my god. It was 93 degrees and I was drenched in sweat, but the smell alone was worth putting the oven on for.

When the cake comes out after 50 minutes, it will have risen up over the raspberries, which are mostly hidden inside or peeking out alo the edges. It will be really, really hard to wait an hour for it to cool. Use that time to whip up some very lightly sweetened heavy cream and wash some more fresh raspberries for serving. Cut into the cake, which is incredibly moist and a little bit dense, get a raspberry and a dollop of whipped cream on your fork, and I dare you to suppress the involuntary “wow” that’s bound to be on your tongue. Hands down, best cake of the summer.