Weird cake! What a weird cake! Apart from being seriously weird it is also THE EASIEST CAKE in the world and that’s official. Bish-bash, bucket cake. Only four main ingredients: flour, sugar, oil and buttermilk and the last is the magic ingredient.
It was certainly one of those cakes that look wrong in the making, don't resemble cake batter and make you feel like heading for a disaster. A third into making it I thought: ‘This is wrong. It can’t come out as proper cake’, as I was working my way through what could be easily mistaken for wet sand. The next third in I went: ‘WTF…?’ as the batter looked like a greasy lump of alien substance. Then I spooned it into the tin, berries on top, thinking 'what a waste of good berries' as everything looked WRONG apart from berries. I resignedly stuck it in the oven…
… and some time later…
... much, much later as I was using frozen fruit…
What do you know? It was a cake.
It’s actually such a delicious – AND EASY – cake to make it should be included in self-help therapy. People who get depressed because nothing they touch ever comes out right should try their hand at doing this - it comes out so right, so unexpectedly and every time!
I think the magic ingredient is buttermilk - no baking powder and the rise on the cake is impressive; no butter but the taste is rich and buttery. The cake originates from Cranberry Island Bakery in Maine which sadly is no more. Huge shame as their defunct Facebook page also shows some divine whoopies. Either way, I’ll keep the recipe alive and can’t get enough berries to throw into this weird magic mix.