I think all of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had a 1-2-3-4 cake recipe.  Its classic, its easy and its a great canvas to do all kinds of things with.  Once you’ve learned the basic recipe the sky’s the limit!  It’s perfect for all your summer get togethers.

For this cake I stirred in diced strawberries and blueberries and it turned out sort of like short cake.  It was great!  You can use whatever berries you like or even swap the berries out for chocolate chunks and nuts. Add some peanut butter to the butter and sugar stage.  Add cocoa powder  in with the flour.  A 1-2-3-4 cake is a great base recipe that you can experiment with.  You really can’t screw it up!

If you don’t have a bundt pan you can bake this in a 9×13 or 2-3 round cake pans for a layer cake.  You’ll just need to adjust the baking time.

Summer Berry Buttermilk Bundt Cake

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups berries (I used strawberries and blueberries but use whatever you like)
1 cup powdered sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour a 10-cup bundt pan, set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. Toss berries with ¼ cup flour mixture (this will keep berries from sinking in the cake), set aside. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 3-5 minutes or until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until just incorporated. Stir in vanilla extract.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to batter and stir until just combined. Stir in half of buttermilk. Continue, alternating between wet and dry (ending with flour) until everything is mixed in. Gently fold in berries.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 60 minutes (or possibly a little longer depending on your oven), until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a cooling rack for 30 minutes. After your bundt cake has cooled for 30 minutes, carefully invert the pan on the cooling rack (be careful, it will still be hot!). Let it be for about 10 minutes and let gravity work to release the cake from the pan. Carefully remove the pan and let cool completely.

After the cake is completely cooled, whisk together powdered sugar and lemon juice. Pour glaze over cake and eat! Serve slices of cake with additional berries if you like and whipped cream.

Source: Ruth’s Table, 2020.