Blackberry Marbled Pound Cake

 

The past couple of weekends I've been religiously making the early morning sojourn to the Farmer's Market to get first dibs on the blackberry stash.  Learned very early on that they go fast and furious and with a short season, need to get them while I can.

Outside of my normal blackberry addiction, I've been hoarding them because it's cordial-making time in the K2 kitchen.  After the requisite batches, I found myself with some extra berries and thought I'd try something new so here you go.

Blackberry Marbled Pound Cake

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup blackberry puree (approx. 1-1/2 cups full berries)

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth.  Add in vanilla and mix until blended.

Add in the eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated.

 

In a separate small dish, combine your dry ingredients and then stir into the creamed mixture until smooth.

In a blender or food process, puree the whole blackberries (only takes about 30 seconds).

Messy mix the pureed blackberries into the batter.  By "messy mix" I mean very loosely fold without fully blending the puree in so that it will have that marbled look.

Light grease the bottom of a loaf and carefully pour the batter into it.  Carefully as to retain the marbled effect while baking.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Set pan on a rack to cool.  Let sit in pan about 5-7 minutes, then loosen the sides and turn out of the pan to finish cooling.

NOTES

The blackberry puree will be as sweet as your berries are when you puree them.  If you need to sweeten them up a bit, just add a mere sprinkle of sugar to it. 

If you're not a huge blackberry fan (which is ridiculous, of course), you could always substitute another fruit puree.  Raspberries or even fresh peaches (which are currently in season) would work really well with this recipe too.

You can serve this will ice cream and top with fresh berries.  According to the Guinea Pig Parents, it also toasts up really well and, with a nice light smear of butter, is quite tasty.