Fresh Blackberry and White Chocolate Poke Cake

This Fresh Blackberry and White Chocolate Poke Cake was originally published on The Culinary Jumble in September 2016. The recipe remains the same but the images have been edited. 

The second of three recipes with fresh, wild blackberries, this one is a white chocolate poke cake.

Perhaps you haven’t come across the term “poke cake” before, but if you check out Pinterest, their feed is heaving with every kind of poke cake imaginable. Apparently, it’s a classic from the 70s. Who knew? The dessert obviously gets its name because you literally poke holes in it and fill them with whatever you fancy.

This one is packed with blackberry syrup and topped with a rich cream cheese and blackberry frosting. I think you could use any kind of cake to make this as long as it wasn’t really crumbly. Likewise, if blackberries are not your thing, use raspberries or strawberries instead.

If you like white chocolate cakes, check out my recipe for white chocolate cupcakes. 

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Fresh Blackberry and White Chocolate Poke Cake

Ingredients

Cake:

• 70g white chocolate
• 85g butter (softened)
• 150g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar or extract
• 220g plain (all purpose) flour - see note 1
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt (omit if your butter is salted)
• 150ml milk

Blackberry Sauce:

• 250g fresh blackberries - see note 2
• 2½ tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon water

Frosting:

• 30g white chocolate (melted)
• 200g cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon blackberry sauce (see instructions)
• 200g icing (confectioners') sugar

Instructions

Cake:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and prepare a cake tin (I used a rectangular one, slightly larger than 8" x 8").
• Melt the chocolate and then set to one side. Using a mixer or electric whisk, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time followed by the melted chocolate.
• In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Then, alternating the dry ingredients with the milk, add to the wet ingredients until the batter is nice and smooth.
• Bake for around 25-30 minutes until an inserted skewer or toothpick comes out clean. Leave to cool in the pan.

Blackberry Sauce:

• Heat the blackberries, sugar and water until it reduces down and becomes nice and thick (around 15-20 minutes). Retain one teaspoon and allow to cool.

Frosting:

• Beat the cream cheese with the icing sugar and retained blackberry sauce, until nice and smooth.

Assembly:

• Poke the cake all over to make holes - I used a small piping nozzle, but you could use a knife or tooth-pick. Don't go too deep and be careful not to crack the inside of the cake.
• Keeping the cake in the pan, pour over the blackberry sauce, pushing some down into the holes. Then, spread evenly over the cake. Leave in the fridge for around 30 minutes.
• Slather over the frosting and return to the fridge to set for a while. Cut into squares and serve. Enjoy!

Notes

1. This recipe first appeared on The Culinary Jumble (my previous blog) in 2015 and the cake was made using regular flour.  For the sake of transparency, I have not made this poke cake with spelt flour. However, I have straight swapped spelt flour for regular flour in everything I've made for the past two years, without any noticeable differences. Therefore, I am confident that this would also be the case for this particular recipe.
2. I used fresh blackberries (because that's what I wanted to use up), but frozen would work equally as well. If you don't fancy blackberries, use raspberries or strawberries instead.