Marillen Buttermilk Cake

Back in November (although it seems so much further away than that), my dad and I returned to Austria. We’d been there the year before as well, traipsing from one café to the next, marking our journey in the pastries we consumed. One of my favorite things about Austria was the frequency of dense cakes and flaky tartlettes topped with thick slices of sweet tangy baby apricots- or marillen, in Austrian German.

This last visit, by a stroke of amazing luck while wandering around Vienna in early evening, we found a Kris Kringle market nestled on a corner. Not necessarily hungry, but unable to pass up the goodness, we used tiny pronged forks to spear fat slivers of roasted potatoes (with a wicked garlic sauce), and bought two squares of a marillen cake that looked highly promising. Oh. My. Word. By far the best sweets of the trip, this cake was unbelievably good. So much so, that before departing for Dublin the next day, we swung back by the market to buy two more squares for breakfast.

That said, today is my dad’s birthday. He is far away on the opposite coast, but if he were here, I would make him my adaptation of this simple buttermilk cake recipe because it reminds me of the time spent in Vienna, shoveling mindblowingly tasty marillen cake into our mouths.

I first attempted this cake on Saturday morning, with blueberries and bing cherries substituted for the raspberries used in the original. I’m not going to lie, the cake was really good- but the sweetness of the berries on top of the sweetness of the cake made me think this could be improved. I’m sure that’s the beauty of the tart fresh raspberries in the original recipe. Thinking wistfully about how much time will pass before my next Europe trip, I decided to attempt some cakey goodness of my own.

So yesterday, I bought 5 plump little marillen, slicing them into ¼ inch-wide strips to lay on top of the cake batter I threw together in oh, about 5 minutes. I didn’t use the lemon zest, mostly because I’d neglected to buy a lemon, though it turned out the cake didn’t need it. I poured the batter into two tiny cute spring-form pans, arranged the marillen slices on top in a pretty little flower, and sprinkled a light dusting of white sugar on top. There, said I, is a good-looking cake.

Well. I won’t talk about the fact that my tired brain way WAY underestimated the expansion of the batter as it baked. I also won’t talk about hastily shoving a cookie sheet underneath my volcanic spring-form pans as gooey batter gurgled over and down the sides, and cemented onto my oven rack. Finally, I will not further indulge your mocking by telling you that I watched my delicately positioned marillen slices all descend into the depths of the batter like a sinking ship, before resigning myself to ugly ugly little cakes.

I did not feel the need to document my mess with a photograph.

However, once the cakes were pried out of the crusty cake pans and let cool on the rack for a bit, I pulled off a little piece to taste, and was so blissfully happy with the results. The soft fuzzy little fruit, though now on the bottom of the cake, gave the perfect amount of sour to balance out the dense sweetness of the cake itself. Half of the first cake was gone last night before it even had the chance to cool all the way, and if I hadn’t given the other cake away, it would probably have been devoured for breakfast.

Marillen Buttermilk Cake (adapted from Gourmet)

Preheat oven at 350. Generously butter and flour 9-inch cake pan. This cake wants to stick to that cake pan like nobody's business.

Start with
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.

Split, pit, and cut 3 apricots into 1/4 inch slices. Set aside.

In mixture, put
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar

Beat softened butter and sugar for about 2 minutes, until pale yellow-white and fluffy.

Then add
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)

And then add
1 large egg

Beat until all wet ingredients are combined.

Switching off, and while mixer is running on low, add slowly to your wet ingredients
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
plus your dry ingredient mixture.

When batter ingredients are combined, scrape the sides of the bowl, mix for a few seconds more to get that last bit of flour into the batter. Then transfer to 1 9-inch cake pan, smoothing batter flat with a spatula.

Scatter, position, or gracefully design apricots on top. I'm not sure if the sinking was due to the overflowing batter, so yours might do better at staying on top.

Sprinkle a good pinch of granulated white sugar over the top of the cake.

Bake at 350 for approximately 20 minutes. BUT- keep an eye on this guy. Depending on your oven, it may cook way faster than this.

Let cool for about 10 minutes in the cake pan before transferring to cooling rack.