raspberry buttermilk cake

Heat your oven to 400°F. Coat a 9-inch round cake pan with nonstick spray and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.Whisk dry ingredients — flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt — together in a small-to-medium bowl and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter, 2/3 cup of the sugar, and zest together with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluff. Add vanilla and egg and beat until well-combined.At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined. Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter (see neurotic note, below) raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar.Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate to serve in wedges.A few notes, refreshed in 2023:The baking time was updated and shortened shortly after publication, after so many of you concurred that this cake bakes crazy quickly.Directions like “scatter” [for the raspberries] always scare me. Where’s the science? Here’s what my neuroses taught us: the ones that were downward were almost all swallowed by the batter. The "o" ones stayed empty, like cups. Both were delicious.Make your own almost-buttermilk: No need to buy buttermilk especially for this or any recipe. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (easily extracted from your zested lemon half) to one cup of milk and let it sit until it clabbers, about 10 minutes. Voila, a perfect buttermilk substitute!My raspberries come from the store in 6-ounce packages and I never regret using the whole amount here.These days I “one-bowl” almost every cake but haven’t updated this recipe accordingly. Should you be lazy like me, beat the butter, sugar, and zest in a big bowl. Add the vanilla and egg. Sprinkle the surface of the batter with the salt and baking powder and beat it well to thoroughly combine/disperse it. Add half the flour (eyeball it), the buttermilk, and the remaining flour, beating after each edition until just combined. Then continue with the pouring and baking instructions above.