Blackberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Cake Recipe
Updated July 22, 2024
It was a chilly weekend. We wanted to work in the yard, but it was too wet and cold. I was forced to stay inside and bake. On Saturday morning, I made a blackberry rhubarb buttermilk cake. I am trying to make a dent in our rhubarb-we have four plants and they are ripe and ready to be used.
Strawberries and rhubarb are commonly used together, but I wanted to try blackberries since they are my favorite berry. I adapted one of my favorite Gourmet cake recipes as the base. The tender buttermilk cake is simple to make. It is moist, buttery, but not overly sweet. The plump, juicy blackberries add bursts of sweetness and the rhubarb chunks bring a slight tartness to the cake. I think the blackberries were the perfect pair for the rhubarb.
The cake is charmingly rustic, no frosting is needed. The berries sunk to the bottom of the cake, so I just served it upside down to show off the beautiful berries. If you want to showcase the sugary crust, serve it right side up. Either way, this cake is a winner.
Blackberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
- 3/4 cup fresh blackberries
- 1/2 cup rhubarb, chopped
- 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
Instructions
- 1. Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Coat a 9-inch round cake pan with cooking spray.
- 2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
- 3. Beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until batter is smooth, about 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and lemon zest. Mix until well combined.
- 4. At low speed, mix in the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk. Start with the flour and end with the flour. Mix until just combined. Don’t over mix.
- 5. Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing the top with a spatula. Scatter blackberries and rhubarb evenly over the top of the batter. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons of turbinado sugar.
- 6. Bake until cake is golden brown and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Let the cake cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool completely. Serve the cake upside down to show off the pretty berries and rhubarb. Cut into slices.
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?
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If you like this cake, you might also like:
Plum Nectarine Buttermilk Cake from Two Peas and Their Pod
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Strawberry Buttermilk Cake from Dishing Up Delights
Blueberry and Strawberry Buttermilk Cake from Pinch My Salt
I love buttermilk in cake recipes! I am definitely going to have to try this one!
This looks absolutely amazing! Your pictures are too die for! I would be delighted if you liked this to Tuesday Tastes tomorrow! YUMMMMY!
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Happy Day,
Jasey @ Crazy Daisy
Great idea to serve it upside down. It looks delicious.
This cake looks so pretty and I love that you served it upside down.
Such a pleasant looking cake. I never made anything with rhubarb, such a shame.
What a pretty cake, Maria! I think the combination of blackberries and rhubarb is lovely.
oh, woe–forced to bake. 🙂
pretty pairing, maria!
This cake looks beautiful! I just happened to combine blackberries and rhubarb on Friday. I made a crisp and I agree that it is a very tasty combo.
Yum, love the idea of this combo.
“forced to stay inside and bake” LOVE IT! hehe
This is a deliciously sweet pairing. What a unique idea.
I love the idea of using rhubarb in a cake like this!
i love blackberries but not rhubarb, strange i know. still trying to find the one rhubarb recipe i can love….
I keep seeing all these amazing looking recipes featuring rhubarb and I still haven’t tried any of them yet. This is definitely tempting me to go to the store (like right now!) so that I can finally get my groove on with rhubarb. This looks like the perfect springtime tea snack to have. Your photos are absolutely gorgeous!
Ooooh that cake does look good!
That is an excellent base cake recipe. Love your adaption and blackberries are my fave, too!
~ingrid
This photo is gorgeous! The cake sounds delicious too 🙂
What a lovely cake… I would love a slice of this for breakfast!
That looks so delicious and moist! I can almost taste it from here.
So pretty Maria! I’ve been meaning to try that buttermilk cake from Gourmet forever…
This is a great recipe! I absolutely adore blackberries and am starting to see them on the market. But better than that is this simple delicious cake, just what we love to have on the table for breakfast and snack (nibbling at all day)!
The man I work with saw me biking around in a fruitless quest for rhubarb in Boston a couple of weeks ago and he found me a BIG bunch. I made a wonderfully simple rhubarb only pie with crumb topping from martha stewart and a rhubarb streusel bread. . . and still there was more rhubarb.
So, I made this for a community brunch using orange zest instead of lemon and it was fantastic. The church ladies went for seconds. What a winner of a recipe. I am going to use this buttermilk cake recipe with other fruits as well!
Thanks. . .
I bet orange zest was fantastic in the cake. Glad you enjoyed it. I will have to try that next time.
Hi,I am planning on making this cake for my husband’s birthday but I find it very difficult to find rhubarb in the Salt Lake area…plus I am a newie to the whole rhubarb thing. Where do you get it? When is it in season?
Thanks,
Claudia.
We grow our own rhubarb, but I know Dan’s and Harmon’s usually have it. I hope you can find some! It is in season right now.
Have you tried this with strawberries and rhubarb?
No, but I am sure it would be great too!
I baked this recipe twice — so far. On the first time I made two 9-inch cakes so we could share with neighbors and co-workers. Everyone raved about it! My husband and I enjoyed it very well, too. We had a good harvest of backyard blackberries recently and also found rhubarb in a local up-scale grocery.
It’s too hot to grow rhubarb here in Louisiana; we got to like it while living in Connecticut. A web search found many possibilities, but I settled on your recipe and was very pleased with the results!
This was excellent! Nice and moist.