Raspberry Sponge Cake for Fresh Summer Berries

Raspberry sponge cake is a delicious white cake topped with baked-in fresh raspberries.

Desserts that make use of fresh summer berries are always the best.

As kids we were often off in the bushes with buckets picking wild berries to bring home to mom. Or we’d pick handfuls as we walked home from the beach, because who can walk by a plump raspberry hanging from a branch by the roadside?

We often walked home from the beach barefoot, popping tar bubbles with our toes as we filled up with berries. Some of the best berry patches in our neighbourhood were along our route so the picking was always good. We’d arrive home with blackened feet and mom would send us out to the back deck to rub them with butter while she decided what to do with our bounty. (I don’t recall if the butter really did take the tar off our feet but it was lots of fun trying.)

This cake is perfect for a small batch of fresh summer berries. The recipe came from my aunt Nana back in the early 1970s, via her sister-in-law in England. It’s equally good with cherries or quartered and sliced apples.

Nana’s Raspberry Sponge Cake

½ cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 Tbsp. milk
3 drops of lemon extract or the zest of half a lemon
1 ½ cups of flour (whole white or spelt)
2 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
About 1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

Grease a 10” spring form pan and preheat the oven to 350 F.
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time then milk and extract.
In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into the creamed mixture and mix until well combined. Scrape batter into prepared pan and arrange berries on top. Bake 40-50 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes then remove the outer ring of the pan.
When completely cool sprinkle with a dusting of icing sugar. Serve with fresh whipped cream.