Blue Corn Raspberry Coffee Cake

Up here in Northern New Mexico it's raspberry season and a couple weeks ago M and I went raspberry picking at Salman Ranch. It was fun and we ended up with enough raspberries to snack on, freeze, and bake into coffee cake and muffins.

It's hard to bake at an altitude this high, especially if I want to put stuff in the batter. Stuff in the batter, I have learned from my friend Betsy the high altitude baking expert, causes the batter not to rise correctly. Betsy worked in the high altitude test kitchen of General Foods several years ago, so she knows what's up.

Nonetheless, I decided to bake a not too sweet cake with raspberries and blue cornmeal. And what the heck, I tossed in some toasted pinon nuts, too.

And you know what? The cake came out fine with no high altitude changes at all.

Raspberry Blue Corn Coffee Cake

Just a note: This is not a very sweet cake. Most of the sweetness comes from the raspberries.
 

Makes 1 single layer cake, 8 inch square or round pan

Ingredients

1/2 cup piñon nuts

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup stone-ground blue cornmeal

1/2  tsp. salt

1 Tbs. baking powder

1 1/4  cups buttermilk

1/2  tsp. baking soda

2 large eggs, or reconstituted egg substitute to equal 2 eggs

1/2  cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup mild vegetable oil such as corn, canola or peanut

1 cup fresh raspberries

Extra sugar for sprinkling on top

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a 8 or 9 inch round or square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Toast piñon nuts by heating in a skillet over medium heat, stirring or shaking pan almost constantly, for 3 to 4 minutes. When nuts become aromatic and golden, remove from heat and set aside.
3. Combine flour, cornmeal, salt and baking powder in a large bowl, stirring well. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together buttermilk and baking soda. Whisk in eggs, sugar and oil.
4. Stir combined wet ingredients into dry until mixture is not quite blended. Be gentle when blending. Add piñon nuts and raspberries with a couple of strokes so the mixture is just barely combined. Pour into prepared baking pan. Sprinkle the top with some sugar, about a tablespoon or so.
5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. 

Refrigerate leftovers. 

Blue Corn Muffins

 A little over a year ago I was buying veggies at the Mora Farmers' Market and I stopped at a table selling blue cornmeal. The farmer pounced, thrusting an opened Ziplock bag under my nose. "Take a sniff of this," she said, seductively.

The nutty, comforting scent made my mind jump to homemade bread, pancakes, and muffins. I mentally teleported to a small cozy kitchen, my abuelita making tortillas and handing them to me, rolled up, saying, "Eat, mi nieta," while I drank a cup of atole.

I forced my nose out of the bag, and snapping back to reality, remembered that my grandmother was Irish, drank boilermakers and was famous for her vegetable soup--and she called me "Bridgie." But blue corn muffins would do nicely with veggie soup, I thought.

So I bought a baggie of blue cornmeal, a pure food descended from Pueblo farmers. Coronado in 1540 noted that blue corn was a staple of the indigenous people he encountered in the Southwest. Nowadays, Southwest farmers are experimenting with different types, especially in the northern part of New Mexico where we have short summers with cool nights.

I made muffins using this recipe that very night. They went nicely with the veggie soup.