This Blackberry Upside Down Cake is an old-fashioned made from scratch cake recipe that has a delicious vanilla cake baked on top of a sweetened blackberry bottom. When flipped the blackberry bottom becomes the top.
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This cake is a great weekday dessert recipe to serve your family. It can be served by itself, with some sweetened whipped cream, or with a scoop of blackberry ice cream.
A Family Cake Tradition
Each family member had their own birthday cake recipe request. My Dad would request an Upside Down Pineapple Cake for his birthday. Recently he requested this Apple Upside Down Cake!
I happened to be spending a day with Dad recently, and he was telling me about the blackberries he had picked over the summer and was talking about wanting to make a Blackberry Cake. His love of upside-down cake inspired us to make this Blackberry Upside Down Cake!
What you need to make a Blackberry Upside Down Cake
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Hand Mixer: When making a cake, the way to get the best results, is to use a hand mixer. Sure, you can stir the batter with a wooden spoon, but your end result won't be as fluffy. A hand mixer helps beat air into the batter, resulting in a fluffier cake.
Large Mixing Bowl: You need a mixing bowl that will be large enough for the batter. I prefer a glass mixing bowl with a handle for making anything I have to use my hand mixer in.
9-inch Round Cake Pan: When I made this Blackberry cake with Dad, I used a 9-inch tart pan. It worked fine, but the sides were just barely tall enough for the cake batter. A cake pan will have taller sides making it easier for you to use all the cake batter without it spilling over.
Hand Whisk: I use a whisk to stir the baking soda, salt, and flour together. It also helps to break up any clumps of flour.
Ingredients for Blackberry Upside Down Cake: Flour, white sugar, brown sugar, butter, salt, baking soda, milk, vanilla extract, and eggs.
Tips for a successful cake recipe
- Use fresh or frozen blackberries for this cake recipe. If you use frozen blackberries, I highly recommend you thaw them out first.
- Allow the cake to cool at least 30 minutes before flipping it over. This gives the cake time to pull away from the edges of the pan on its own.
- Before flipping the cake over, as an extra precaution, run a butter knife around the edge of the cake pan to make sure the cake is not stuck to the sides.
- When flipping the blackberry upside-down cake, be sure to use a plate or platter that is a larger circumference than the cake.
- Gently pull up when removing the pan. if it feels stuck, flip it back over and run the butter knife around the edge again.
- As an extra precaution, parchment paper can be used to line the cake pan to prevent the berries from sticking.
Make this Blackberry Upside Down Cake your way
- Add a tablespoon of lemon juice or lemon zest to the cake batter to brighten it up some.
- Serve with homemade whipped cream. Make the whipped cream with ½ cup of heavy cream and a tablespoon of powdered sugar.
- Sweeten some sour cream with powdered sugar and a sprinkling of lemon zest and drizzle over top of the cake.
- Add ½ teaspoon of cinnamon to the blackberry mixture to add some warmth.
Other Birthday Cake Recipe requests from my family
I have always been one who loved cake, cupcakes, and cookies. Which, by the way, is probably why you see so many of those types of recipes here! I love the fancy gorgeous cakes, but the simple cakes that take little time to put together and bake are can the best of the best!
Mom and I were the chocolate fans. Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake for me, and German Chocolate Bundt Cake for mom! I also love this Cherry Delicious Almond Cake!
My son Chris is a huge carrot cake fan. He also loves this Banana Cake with Browned Butter Maple Frosting.
My son Justin always wants Coconut Cream Pie, someone has to be different and want pie!
Two other cakes that deserve mentioning here are Banana Layer Cake with Lemon Frosting and Southern Diner Cake. I have made these two recipes many times and they go over well!
📖 Recipe
Blackberry Upside Down Cake
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Ingredients
FOR THE TOPPING:
- ⅓ cup Brown Sugar
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 cups blackberries fresh or frozen
FOR THE CAKE:
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoons salt
- ½ cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Melt the butter and brown sugar over medium heat in a large saucepan. Add blackberries and toss to coat. Let cook 1 minute.
- Remove from heat and pour into a 9-inch cake pan sprayed with cooking spray.
- Beat the sugar and butter together in a bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs.
- Place the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and stir to combine.
- Add the vanilla extract to the milk and alternately stir the flour and milk into the butter mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
- Spoon the batter over top of the blackberry mixture in the cake pan.
- Bake the cake in a preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake.
- Let the cake cool on in pan on a rack for 30 minutes.
- Loosen the cake from pan by sliding a knife along the inside edge of the pan. Place the cake plate over top of the pan and flip. Lift the pan slowly to release the cake.
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