This Sunday morning, I was searching recipes for a blackberry jam cake on Bing, and "Blackberry Jam Cake," from P. Allen Smith's website popped into view. I decided to see if I could modify the recipe to use avocado oil rather than butter. I also wanted to substitute half of a whole grain flour. When I later googled the question, "Do blackberries and barley go together," I found a scone recipe that uses whole blackberries and barley flour, so I decided the flavors would be complementary. I want to find ways to use my large stock of blackberry jam that has resulted from a couple of years of excellent harvests.
This recipe makes a very large cake. As I am experimenting, and there are just two of us, I chose to make a half recipe. Given the ingredient amounts, I decided on a 10-cup Bundt pan (the "party" pan), and that was a good decision. Oil cakes tend not to rise a lot, but the batter came within an inch of the top. I think that the very largest Bundt cake pan could handle the full recipe.
I replaced ½ cup butter with 1/3 cup avocado oil. I used half barley flour. I substituted English walnuts for the black walnuts that I do not have. I only have light brown sugar, so I used it instead of the dark brown sugar. I deleted half a cup of raisins. I used a cup of the blackberry jam that I recently made--from a jar where there was not enough to can, from a dish with not enough even to put into a jar, and from a jar that did not seal. I did not bother separating the eggs and beating the egg whites and folding them in. I think that it would not make as much difference with an oil cake as it would a butter cake.
The recipe says to bake at 325 F for 1 ½ hours to 2 hours. That seems a rather long interval, but perhaps it depends on the consistency of the jam. I checked the cake after an hour, and, since it is a half recipe and therefore a smaller cake. It registered 210 F, and a Bundt cake is done at 200 F, according to the site I googled. After 15 minutes, it came out of the pan easily. I will let it cool and rest overnight to allow the flavors to develop, and we will begin slicing it tomorrow evening for dessert. It smells wonderful!
.
