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1
Preheat the oven to 350F.
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2
Melt the butter in a large cast-iron skillet or ovenproof baking dish in the oven, 5 to 7 minutes.
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3
Place the blackberries in a large bowl.
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4
Using a potato masher, mash them to release some of the juices.
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5
If the berries are tart, sprinkle over some of the sugar.
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6
To make the batter, in another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
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7
Add the 1 cup sugar, milk, and vanilla extract, and stir until evenly blended.
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8
Remove the skillet from the oven and add the melted butter to the batter; stir to combine.
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9
Pour the batter all at once into the skillet, then add the blackberries and juices to the center of the batter.
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10
Bake until the top is golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the batter comes out clean, about 1 hour.
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11
Serve, hot, warm, or at room temperature with whipped cream, creme fraiche, or ice cream.
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12
Butter is simply over-whipped cream.
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13
In cream, the fat floats around in a water suspension.
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14
When the cream is whipped, the fat coagulates and the remaining liquid is buttermilk (see page 57).
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15
Whereas cream is an oil-in-water emulsion, after churning, the butter is a water-in-oil emulsion.
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16
This emulsion, butter, is a complex combination of milk fat, milk solids, and water.
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17
American butter contains at least 80 percent milk fat; some European or European-style butters contain between 82 and 88 percent milk fat.
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18
For simplicity and consistency of product, I use Land o Lakes unsalted butter in my recipes, preferring unsalted to salted, because you can always add salt, but you cannot take it out.
