Blackberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

A cake that’s equally tasty and stunning?! You can have it all with this delicious vanilla blackberry cake with cream cheese frosting. Made with moist layer of vanilla cake, blackberry jam, and tangy cream cheese icing, you’ll love this blackberry cake!

Vanilla Blackberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

If there’s one thing I know about the bromies, it’s that you all love cake. Chocolate cake, vanilla cake, pistachio cake, red velvet cake, lemon cake–this community loves them all. So, I know you might be looking for a fun, slightly out-of-the-box flavor for all your spring and summer occasions. To which I present this delectable blackberry cake. You guys…THIS CAKE. She is *so* good. You’re going to love her.

What is a blackberry cake?

This blackberry cake is tender and moist, bursting with blackberries, perfectly balanced between salty and sweet, easy to make, AND pretty to look at. I mean…what more could you want? Now, there are a lot of different ways you can make a cake blackberry flavored, but we chose to go with our famous vanilla cake recipe, a dreamy cream cheese frosting and hold it all together with thick layers of perfectly sweet blackberry jam. Some blackberry cakes have blackberries in the actual cake or are made with a blackberry frosting, but we found using a blackberry jam filling packed a flavorful punch with minimal effort!

Ingredients for this blackberry cake

This blackberry cake requires making a few different components (cake, frosting and filling!), but most of your ingredients are pantry staples like butter and flour. Here’s your shopping list!

• Butter
• Vegetable Oil
• Granulated Sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla Extract
• Cake Flour
• Salt
• Baking Powder
• Buttermilk
• Blackberry Preserves
• Cream Cheese
• Powdered Sugar

Cake flour vs All-Purpose Flour?

While the all-purpose flour will work totally fine in this recipe, it will produce an ever so slightly denser and breadier cake, which is why we usually recommend cake flour in homemade cakes. Cake flour is finer and lighter so it will create a softer, more velvety crumb.

Luckily, the difference isn’t huge, so you can really use whatever you have on hand, but if you want to take this cake to bakery level I would recommend grabbing some cake flour for this recipe!

If you’re in a pinch, all-purpose will work. Us 2 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour instead of 3 cups of cake flour.

Tips for making the best homemade blackberry cake

Listen guys, I know homemade cakes can be a little intimidating. But I’ve struggled through it so you don’t have to. A few tips before we get started:

• Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature. SO IMPORTANT. This will help everything come together smoothly and allow you to beat the air into the batter to get that fluffy cake you’re looking for.
• Use high quality vanilla. Rodelle Vanilla is my vanilla extract of choice and they are THE BEST. Especially in vanilla cake, where like the only flavor is…vanilla, duh.
• Don’t over mix your batter! Obviously you don’t want huge clumps of straight flour in your batter, but as soon as everything is smooth, resist the temptation to keep mixing, and trust that you’ve gotten enough air in it during the early stages.
• Make sure you let the cakes cool completely before frosting. This might be the most important rule in homemade cake baking and it’s no exception for this blackberry cake! Your cake layers must be completely cool before assembling or your cakes will melt right off each other.

How to make a dreamy cream cheese frosting

• Make sure your cream cheese and butter are at true room temperature: I cannot stress enough just how important this step is! If the butter and cream cheese are not the same temperature your frosting can get lump, or worse, it can split. We like to leave our cream cheese and butter out for at least 3 hours before using them in this homemade frosting!
• Use the whisk attachment: The whisk attachment is your best friend in homemade frostings. As it beats it whips air into your frosting giving you the fluffiest frosting ever.
• Trust your gut: Or rather, your tastebuds! Frosting is one of the most forgiving treats to make. If it’s starting to taste too sweet for your liking, stopping adding sugar. Likewise, if you want more vanilla or a little extra salt add a little bit more in at a time to your taste!

Go forth and eat cake, my friends!

Enjoy!

XXX

• Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cool Time: 1 hour
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours
• Yield: 20 servings
• Category: dessert
• Method: oven
• Cuisine: american

Blackberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

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A cake that’s equally tasty and stunning?! You can have it all with this delicious vanilla blackberry cake with cream cheese frosting. Made with moist layer of vanilla cake, blackberry jam, and tangy cream cheese icing, you’ll love this blackberry cake!

• Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cool Time: 1 hour
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours
• Yield: 20 servings
• Category: dessert
• Method: oven
• Cuisine: american

Units: USM

Ingredients

for the cake

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/3 cups buttermilk
• 1 12 ounce jar blackberry preserves

for the cream cheese frosting

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 5 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F and grease and flour two 8 or 9 inch cake pans (or 3 6 inch cake pans like we have here). Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the softened butter and oil together until they become homogenous, about 3 minutes. This will not work if your butter is not completely room temperature.
3. Slowly add the granulated sugar to the oil and butter, beating on high until the mixture is light and fluffy and turns a very pale yellow, about 3 minutes.
4. Add the eggs in one at time, scraping down the bowl in between each addition. Add the vanilla extract. Beat the mixture on high for 3 minutes more to incorporate as much air as possible.
5. In separate bowl sift together the cake flour, salt, and baking powder. Alternate mixing in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk in 4 batches, starting with the buttermilk and ending with the dry ingredients. It’s okay if the batter still has a few lumps in it–you don’t want to over mix it.
6. Split the batter evenly into the prepared pans and bake for 30 minutes or until the cake is a lightly golden brown and springs back when pressed. This will depend on your oven. Take out of the oven and transfer to a cooling rack until the pans are cool enough to touch. Once cool, turn the cakes out of their pans, peel off the parchment and allow to cool completely before frosting.
7. Once the cakes are cool, make the cream cheese frosting. Place the softened butter and cream cheese in a stand mixer fit with the whisk attachment. Beat the butter and cream cheese together until homogenous and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
8. Add the vanilla extract, salt, and powdered sugar and whip to combine. After about a minute of mixing, use a rubber spatula to scrape down the bowl and beat for 2 more minutes until light and fluffy. Transfer to a large piping bag to make frosting easier!
9. Place your first cake layer on your cake stand or serving dish. Pipe a circle of frosting around the outer edge of the top of the cake. In a random pattern, pipe frosting into middle of cake, then smooth out middle of frosting with a spatula, keeping the edge/outer rim of the frosting intact. (Basically you’re making a super shallow divot for the jam). Fill inner divot with 1/3 cup blackberry jam, spreading it evenly.
10. Repeat with second layer. For third layer, frost top of cake normally, then frost outside with remaining frosting.
11. If desired, top with blackberries and edible flowers! Refrigerate until ready to serve!