Do you know what happens when you work in a depressingly slow office and have nothing but time on your hands? You get lost in Pinterest and spend your day thinking about the food you are going to make this week. Or at least that’s what I do. I also stalk.

No, wait. It’s the good kind of stalking, I swear.

Every day I seem to find a new blog I fall in love with add to my Inspiration list and then spend an embarrassing amount of time going through their old posts, following them all over social media (and going through every one of their posts there too). It is incredibly fun for a super nosy person such as myself. There is something so wonderful about going through a blogger’s timeline and seeing how they’ve progressed through the months or years. I especially love looking through the food photography on other blogs and seeing their evolution to total food photographer badasses.

I took photography for years while in college, but 99% of it was black and white film photography because I was cool and artsy like that. My professor also told me that my strengths were in capturing people and moments. She also basically flat out told me I sucked at still life photography. Soo…… I always stuck to people. Even when I took my one and only digital photography class (photojournalism), it was all about the people. For the longest time, I felt like I was too inadequate to do still life and I wish instead of telling me I sucked, my professor helped me improve that aspect of my photography. I feel like I am getting the hang of it now and I am still experimenting a lot with my shots, but I am so impatient that I end up doing photoshoots like this where all my shots are blurry, but I can’t reshoot because I ate all the cake and all the berries.

What can I say, I’m an emotional eater.

Don’t get me wrong, these cakes are totally devourable (is that even a word?) without the silent emotional turmoil  The cake is light and airy, with a swirl of that addictive chunky berry sauce baked in.

So. Freaking. Good. Plus they are mini cakes and therefore super cute.

Go on, have one!

 

Yield: 5 mini cakes

Blackberry Mini Cakes with Fresh Whipped Cream

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Ingredients

• 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/5 cup buttermilk (regular milk works too)
• 1.5 cups cake flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup berry coulis
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups fresh berries (I used blackberries and blueberries)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease and flour large jumbo muffin tins and set aside.
2. Beat the butter until light and creamy. Add the sugar and mix well. Add the eggs in one at a time, followed by the vanilla and buttermilk.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together, then add to the wet ingredients. Do not over mix.
4. Fill the muffin tin 2/3 full and add 1 - 2 tablespoons of berry sauce. Use a toothpick to swirl the sauce.
5. Bake the cakes for about 20 - 25 minutes, or until they are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cakes to rest in the tin for 5 minutes before taking out to cool on a wire rack.
6. As the cakes cool, beat the whipping cream on high for about 5 minutes, or until it thickens and forms peaks. Add in the sugar and vanilla.
7. Cut each cake in half. Put a generous layer of whipped cream on the bottom later and top with berries. Place the top half of the cake back on and layer with the whipped cream and more berries.