Adding Beaumes-de-Venise — a delicate, fruity dessert wine — keeps this cake moist and adds a whole new dimension to its flavor. Combining blackberries with blackberry preserves for the topping brings out the best in the berries, whether they’re tart or sweet.
Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr
Cake can be made (without syrup and topping) 1 day ahead, cooled completely, then kept at room temperature, wrapped in plastic wrap.
Recipe information
Yield
Makes 8 servings
Ingredients
For topping
Preparation
Make cake:
Step 1
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Step 2
Line bottom of a buttered 9- by 2-inch round cake pan with a round of wax paper, then butter paper.
Step 3
Sift together flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then, with mixer at low speed, beat in all of buttermilk until just combined. Add flour mixture in 3 batches, mixing after each addition until just combined.
Step 4
Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top, and bake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a thin sharp knife around edge of cake to loosen. Invert onto rack, then slide cake onto a cake plate.
Make topping:
Step 5
Bring wine, 3 tablespoons sugar, and zest to a boil in a small heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil until syrup is reduced to about 2/3 cup, 1 to 2 minutes. Discard zest.
Step 6
Reserve 2 tablespoons syrup and pour remainder slowly and evenly over cake (cake will absorb syrup).
Step 7
Stir together reserved syrup, preserves, and remaining tablespoon sugar in small saucepan and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly, about 1 minute (it should be the consistency of a thick syrup). Put blackberries in a large bowl, then pour preserves mixture over berries. Gently stir berries with a rubber spatula to coat, then pour over cake, mounding blackberries on top.
Step 8
Serve warm or at room temperature.
