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Tennessee Blackberry Jam Cake

September 13, 2009 by The Runaway Spoon 6 Comments

IMG_1408 Tennessee Blackberry Jam Cake

My grandparents lived on a farm in Middle Tennessee.  It was a wonderful place for grandkids, and my brother and I made great use of it.  Lots of rolling, verdant land to run around on, cows mooing in the background.  There was a creek running through the property, shallow enough that we could wade around in it, or play pooh sticks or search for arrowheads and other treasures.  We made little boats from sticks and leaves to float through the fast moving water.  At one point, my grandfather got a pony for us. We named him Pickle, sometimes sweet, sometimes sour.  We’d sit for hours in the long gravel driveway, combing through to find “Indian money,” little cylindrical rocks scored around in rings.

Behind one of the outbuildings, there was a blackberry bramble, huge and dense, and to us it seemed ancient.  Our grandmother used to send us out to collect blackberries, and it was a huge testament to the deliciousness of the berries that we could be persuaded.  Picking berries from a bramble requires dexterity and patience; the branches are twisted and covered with thorns and sharp twigs and the blackberries are always hidden in its depths.  But we’d come back with a basket of berries (and scratched arms) and Grandmother would divide the berries, still warm from the sun, into her old ironstone bowls, sprinkle them with sugar and pour over sweet milk.  We would lick our bowls, and sometimes be brave enough to go out for more berries.  Grandaddy would paint our scratches with Mecurochrome, preparing us for the next blackberry expedition.

We ate so many of the blackberries with milk, that I don’t really remember having them any other way.   But for years, I have seen recipes in a wide variety of cookbooks for “Tennessee Jam Cake,” occasionally Kentucky Jam Cake or Mom’s Jam Cake.  Sometimes these recipes are loaf cakes with raisins, pecans or other nuts, sometimes layered cakes brushed with melted jam, or filled with a crushed pineapple filling, but always incorporating blackberry jam.  My memory of those bowls of berries has always made recipes for Tennessee Jam Cake intriguing, so with a little research and a little tinkering, I developed my own version, with as little messing about as possible.

Tennessee Blackberry Jam Cake

 This is a sweet, simple cake, useful for breakfast or delicious as dessert.  Mix up a powdered sugar glaze to pour over the top if you want a sweeter treat, or serve with ice cream or whipped cream and fresh blackberries.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 cup seedless blackberry jam

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1½ cups buttermilk, well-shaken

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Grease and flour a Bundt pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add the jam and beat until combined.

Combine the flour, baking soda and nutmeg in a small bowl.  Measure out the buttermilk and stir the vanilla into it.  Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter alternately with the buttermilk, in three additions, mixing after each until completely combined.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until a tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then carefully turn out on to a wire rack to cool.

Serves 10 – 12

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Filed Under: Fruit, Fruit and Vegetables, Snacks And Starters, Southern Specialties, Sweets Tagged With: baking, blackberry, cake, jam, Southern specialties

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Margaret says

    September 21, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    I made this yummy Blackberry Jam cake for my husband’s birthday this weekend – and even though my MIL brought another cake after I asked her not to – we all loved it! I served it with lightly whipped cream and really it was delicious! I used the Fresh Market brand of blackberry jam – very good and tart. Now I have extra buttermilk – guess I’ll have to get up early and make pancakes for the kids in the morning!
    Margaret

  2. Colleen M. says

    May 27, 2022 at 1:03 am

    I made this delicious cake for the first time today for my Book Club. It turned out beautifully! We all loved the crunchy exterior that came from the sugar and jam. That was a bonus treat! I dusted the top with powdered sugar, and served it with the option of whipped cream. This is a keeper. The one change I made was that I only had 1% milk in the house. So instead of buttermilk I used 1 C sour cream with a 1/2 C of 1% milk whisked in. Worked out nicely.

  3. Gayle Shepherd says

    October 9, 2022 at 4:27 pm

    Is this pain flour or self-rising? Thanks Could you use self-rising ,are would it not work.

  4. The Runaway Spoon says

    October 9, 2022 at 5:19 pm

    It is all-purpose plain flour. I have never made it with self-rising, but I think you could. I use a ratio of 1 cup of plain flour with 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder with 1/4 teaspoon salt for 1 cup self rising.

Trackbacks

  1. The Runaway Spoon » Blackberry Orange Muffins says:
    July 7, 2010 at 5:10 pm

    […] have waxed poetic about my love for fresh blackberries before, with my Tennessee Blackberry Jam Cake, and at this time of year, when the big juicy berries are all over the farmers markets, I can […]

  2. Blackberry sugar pie | NotifySync in Canada says:
    July 5, 2011 at 10:05 am

    […] blackberries. All tucked under a crackly, sugary carapace. It is very much like one of my greatest childhood memories, blackberries fresh from the bramble, sprinkled with sugar and doused with cold milk, in convenient […]

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I'm P.C. I think I am like most people. Somewhere in the middle between food snob and food schlub. Just being in the kitchen makes me happy. I live, mostly in my kitchen, in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

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