Summer Blackberry Lemon Buttermilk Cake

The current weather has made this a confusing time of year to be in London.  Many of the days (even the sunny ones) seem to have dark grey storm clouds always looming nearby and surprise wind and/or rain storms might appear at any moment.  And most of us have basically accepted that summer is sadly over, even though its still August... However, there is still one small part of summer holding on, and that is the ripe beautiful blackberries around every corner.  The last few weeks I have found myself stopping multiple times mid run, as I've stumbled upon yet another patch of missed, forgotten, delicious, plump, black berries.

If you find yourself with a spare cup of berries, this summery cake is a brilliant use of them.  I've adapted the recipe by kicking up the lemon flavor with a sugary glaze on top, making a delicious tart, yet sweet, light cake, that leaves you wanting "just one more slice."  This cake is fast to whip up, and a great addition to summer pot lucks or barbeques.  I usually use blackberries in this recipe, but it does great with any type of berry you have lying around the house, and the original recipe calls for raspberry.

Oreo Chocolate Fudge

I've been travelling a lot for rotations the last two months, away from my kitchen, so I've been behind in posting new recipes, however I've still been somehow baking 2-3 times.  I'm enjoying making simple old classic recipes recently, and have been asking around for inspiration of forgotten desserts.  This current recipe came up due to complaints in the difficulty of making reliable fudge, along with annoyance at using candy thermometers.

So I set out for a simple reliable fudge recipe that isn't picky enough to require a candy thermometer (thus ruling out most the really classic recipes).  I've stumbled upon this fudge base recipe, and look forward to building on it with all sorts of flavor combinations (next is dark chocolate and raspberry!).  I believe the fluff gives it more stability, leaving you with less risk of a grainy fudge, or one that doesn't set up.  I'm not the biggest fan of white chocolate, so I altered the original recipe to use half dark chocolate and half white chocolate, and really liked the resulting flavor, it tastes a bit like milk chocolate.

The texture of this is part way to being mousse-like, melting in your mouth with chocolaty goodness, and the cookies add a great crunch. After trying this I realized I hadn't eaten fudge since I was a kid, so while I can't attest to how classic this tastes, I can say it was hard to stop snacking on.  Remember when buying white chocolate for baking to make sure it has cocoa butter as one of the first few ingredients!