When We Went Raspberry Picking...

One year, we went strawberry picking with the Malaysians. When the next summer came, I wanted to pick something else. So I suggested raspberries. I didn't know what raspberry plants look like.

It was a picking I don't want to go through again, at least not in that kind of weather. We were drenched with sweat under the sweltering heat, and those raspberries, they're too small that it felt like forever to fill our baskets.

Nevertheless, we did return home with pounds of fresh raspberries, which in turn, gave me a whole afternoon of bustling in the kitchen. I grabbed some recipe pamphlets from the Farm, and on the way home, started planning what I was going to with those raspberries before they go bad.


I made raspberry puree and froze them for my future cake creations. I made raspberry roll, and I made Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake, which we ended up giving to the Malaysian brothers because we had too mych raspberry baked goods in the house by the time I was done. By the time I was done, I was also completely exhausted, but it was worth it, because hubby came back from the brothers' house with a clean dish. He said the brothers loved it.

For a while, I thought I had lost the recipe, and while the kids and I were looking at the photos, my oldest daughter said,

You have to make this again," pointing at the photo of this Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake.

I told her, "I don't know where the recipe is."

But, today, as I was sorting out my recipe box while packing, I found it.

"I found it!" I exclaimed.

"You can make it then," she replied.

"No, raspberries are expensive."

"Do they have raspberry picking in New Mexico?" my younger daughter asked.

"No."

"In Malaysia?"

I chuckled to myself before saying, "No."

Poor kids.

So I guess we'll make it when the opportunity arises, inshaallah.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Filling:

12 oz cream cheese, softened/at room temperature
1/3 C sugar
1 egg
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla



Streusel:
1/2 C (1 8 oz stick) butter, softened/at room temperature
1 C sugar
2/3 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt


Batter:
1/2 C (1 8 oz stick) butter, softened/romm temperature
1 1/4 C sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 C all purpose flour
1 Tbs + 1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 C milk
3 C fresh raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 375 F
2. Butter a 13x9 glass oven proof dish
   

Filling:

1. Cream cream cheese and sugar
2. Add egg, lemon juice, and vanilla

Streusel:
1. Blend butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt

Batter:

1. Beat butter and sugar
2. Beat in eggs, and vanilla till light
3. Whisk flour and baking powder and salt
4. *Add the flour mixture slowly to batter in 3 additions, alternating with milk **Fold in raspberries gently
5. Spread 2 1/2 cups batter in the dish
6. Spread filling evenly on top
7. Drop spoonfuls of remaining batter on filling
8. Spread evenly, sprinkle streusel over
9. Bake on middle rack for 1 hour and 5 minutes or till golden
10. Cool completely

Cook's Notes:

• * For better mixing, the dry ingredients are added to the creamed butter alternately with the wet ingredients. The first addition would be the dry ingredients, 1/3 of it, then mix till combined, then 1/2 of the wet ingredients (in this case, milk) and mix again, then the dry ingredients, and so on. The last addition will be the dry ingredients.
• ** Folding is not the same as mixing or stirring. Folding ensures that the air we have worked to hard to trap in the batter is not released by stirring.
• I used an oven proof 13x9 oven proof glass dish. Use a 13x9 dish, oval or rectangular.
• The reason why the cream cheese and butter were required to be at room temperature is so the mixing will be easier. Just take out the butter and cream cheese sometime way before you plan to make this so by the time you do, they will be at room temperature.
• However, if you're in a rush, and don't want to wait for them to come to room temperature, or are afraid that if you wait, you will lose the motivation to make this at all (like what always happens to me, and I believe, my mom ;), just cream the cream cheese by itself with the mixer until it's soft, and the same with the butter.
• It's also better if the eggs are also allowed to come to room temperature so you will get more volume. (There is a whole dos and don't related to cake making that I cannot elaborate on here, unfortunately).
• A demo on folding (we're not talking laundry):

Well, I guess, we'll be waiting ages before we make this again, if we do return to Malaysia, unless we substitute something else for the raspberries that is. Hmm...maybe mangoes, mangosteen, jackfruits, guava, durian, rambutan...ohh...the possibilities!