“Perhaps I have loved the artist because creation is the nearest we come to divinity.”

— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume I (1931-1934)

Happy ninth birthday to La Pêche Fraîche.

Nine years! Someone pinch me, because I have a sneaking suspicion we’re fast approaching a decade and it’s making me woozy.

Every year I wax on and on about how I never thought that this blog would survive xyz phases of my life, but I promise you, this year, I mean it. I really mean it.
It is a daunting prospect to stare down the barrel of clerkship year, given the swirling rumors and terrifying tales that you hear from older students and denizens of the internet.
Of course, when I heard those things, I was nervous for my sleep schedule and free time (lol), but my mind most hung on my fear of losing my time for baking/testing/photographing/writing and above all, my passion and zest for it.

But here I am! Just shy of halfway through this year and celebrating nine years of this blog. I just finished moving (I am either an idiot or insane for doing this in the middle of this year) and I have a shiny new oven and I am eager to bake ALL THE THINGS this summer.

So we bake on, boats against the current… yadda yadda.

I wanted a simple cake this year, one that could be achieved in an afternoon because, well, you get it.
However, this being an important celebration cake, it also needed a special touch.
The jewel like raspberries I saw in the grocery store alongside the luscious local buttermilk sealed the deal as I dreamed of a lightly sweet, fluffy cake with tart raspberries to accompany. This raspberry cloud cake was born.

This cake is a soft, tender buttermilk cake with a pale, even crumb, frosted with delightfully light and salty cream cheese frosting and filled with raspberry jam studded with fresh raspberries. A rubied crown adds an organically beautiful touch and the wow factor.

Though it’s a simple and straightforward bake, I quite literally spent $15 dollars on raspberries to make it. Oh, the joys of living in New York City. Let it never be said that I don’t love and suffer for this dumb website (!).

A few notes, to make this “afternoonable” cake go smoothly:

I have skirted this in the past by using a microwave judiciously, but you absolutely must have all your ingredients for the cake and frosting at room temperature. I really mean take these out and do your mise en place in the morning while you make your tea or coffee and leave them out, separated from one another so they get room temperature air on all sides. If your air conditioning is particularly chilly, consider leaving them under a bright light. This cake requires nearly warm butter because of the reverse creaming technique. It will definitely not work without it! Sorry to be stern, but I want you to reach cake nirvana, too.

Watch your raspberry frosting closely. If it looks like it’s going to break/curdle, it probably is. Stop adding raspberry jam (this is why you should go only a tiny spoonful at a time) before it gets to that point, and if it does, add a bit of powdered sugar and slowly mix it together. In my experience, cream cheese frosting is the absolute most fickle type, so I am always watching my mixer like a hawk while it is whipping. What feels like 200 past curdled bowls of the stuff has given me hypervigilance.

Given their showpiece placement, choose your most beautiful and perfect berries for the top when you first open the pints. Keep them in the fridge and leave the uglier berries out. Those ones will be pulled apart to add to the filling of the cake. You will be sad if you only have mushy, nearly moldy berries to make your cake crown.

Eight years / white chocolate, mascarpone, and lemon cake
Seven years / yellow cake with cherry buttercream
Six years / vegan coconut and chocolate cake
Five years / simple chocolate cake
Four years / eclectic chocolate cake
Three years / vanilla almond cake
Two years / malted milk birthday cake
One year / eek

Raspberry Cloud Cake
makes 1 3×6″ layer cake

ingredients:
for the buttermilk cake:
400 grams (3 1/3 cups) flour
370 grams (1 3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
140 grams (5 medium/4.5 large) egg whites, completely room temperature
113 grams (1/2 cup) canola oil
280 grams (10 ounces, 1 1/4 cup) full fat buttermilk, warm or room temperature
170 grams (6 ounces, 1 1/2 sticks) butter, extremely soft
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

for the cream cheese frosting:
113 grams (4 ounces, 1 stick) butter, softened
225 grams (8 ounces) cream cheese, completely softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
500 grams (4 cups) powdered sugar, sifted

to assemble:
seedless all-fruit raspberry jam
2 pints raspberries
sprinkles

directions:
Make the cake: preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease and flour 3 6″ pans.
Whisk flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda together.
Whisk vanilla, canola oil, and buttermilk together.
Add the butter to the dry ingredients on low speed and mix for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
Alternate adding the egg whites and buttermilk mixture into the batter, scraping after every second addition.
Ensure the batter is completely homogeneous before portioning out into the prepared pans.
Bake for 25-35 minutes, checking every 5 minutes after 25 minutes.
The cakes should be lightly golden, fragrant, set in the middle and springy, and only just slightly pulling away from the sides of the pan.
Allow to cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the cream cheese frosting: whip butter and cream cheese together with the salt and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy.
Add the powdered sugar in 1/2 cup at a time and mix on low speed until incorporated.
Whip until frosting is light and doubled in volume.
If your frosting is too thick, add 1-2 tablespoons of milk, going 1/2 tablespoon at a time (mine was fine without, but it was a warm day).
Separate your frosting into 2 halves.
Add 4 tablespoons raspberry jam and a drop of pink food coloring into one half and whip until combined.
Depending on the runniness of your jam, you may need to add 1/2 cup more powdered sugar.
To assemble the cake, tort the tops and bottoms of the layers.
Place the first layer on your serving platter and pipe a rim of the raspberry frosting around the edge.
Using the back of a spoon, spread a generous 3 tablespoons or so of jam onto the center of the cake.
Break up 3 raspberries into small pieces and scatter them about.
Repeat with the second layer.
To frost, spread raspberry frosting around the bottom of the cake and plain frosting on the top.
Swirl and create an ombre effect as you frost.
Top with more raspberries and sprinkles!