Summer baking

It's getting too hot to turn on the oven, but when I saw this recipe for salt-kissed buttermilk cake on 101 cookbooks, I couldn't resist trying it out that very minute. I already had some beautiful fleur de sel, having just returned from Brittany, and my mom bought me some Michigan raspberries at the South Haven Farmers Market that were just begging to be made into something fun.

This is a very un-fussy recipe, and it only took me about 30 minutes to make it on Tuesday after work. It functions very well as both a dessert and morning coffee cake or a mid-day snack break cake, and as Heidi points out, you really could make this recipe with any kind of fruit. I loved the caramelized sugar (I used turbinado from Whole Foods) mixed with the crunchy fleur de sel on top. It added just enough sweet-saltiness to the whole concoction.

Heidi recommends using a tart pan for this recipe. I don't own one, so I used a springform pan. This made the cake a little too thick, so I think if I were to make this again I would purchase a tart pan -- I like this one from Crate and Barrel. The recipe calls for whole-wheat pastry flour, but I used all-purpose flour and it turned out just fine.

Hooray for a not-too-sweet, easy-to-make seasonal summer cake!