Happy 4th of July + Free Printable

Happy 4th of July! For those of you in the US who have picnics or parties planned, you might want to download these free printable straw tags from Pick Your Plum:

via Pick Your Plum

After stumbling over this delicious Strawberry-Blackberry Cake recipe from Shockingly Delicious I couldn't wait to share it with you here.  

It was so good I actually ate some for breakfast with my morning coffee the next day!  It makes for a pleasant holiday desert with a naturally red-white-and blue theme, and looks lovely with a dusting of powdered sugar:

Image and recipe courtesy of Shockingly Delicious

  Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature, plus more for pie plate
• 3/4 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons for topping
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (I used orange extract and this cake was still delicious)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 12 ounces fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
• 6 ounces fresh blackberries
• Garnish: powdered sugar or freshly whipped cream

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter (or mist with nonstick spray) a 10-inch pie plate, a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate, or a 9-inch Springform pan.
2. Put butter and 3/4 cup sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium-low and mix in egg, milk, vanilla and Fiori di Sicilia. (The cold milk will likely cause the butter to clump. Don’t worry.)
3. Reduce speed to low; add salt and baking powder and mix well. Add flour and mix until combined. Scrape batter into buttered pie plate; an offset spatula works well to smooth batter into pie dish. Arrange strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down and as close together as possible; sprinkle blackberries on top. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries (don’t reduce the sugar for topping because that’s what makes the berries jammy).
4. Bake cake 10 minutes; reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake another 1 hour, until cake is golden brown and firm to the touch. Remove from oven and let cool in pie plate on a wire rack. Cut into wedges and dust with powdered sugar at serving time, for pretty.
5. Cake can be stored at room temperature, loosely covered, up to 2 days. It will remain moist.
6. Makes 1 10-inch cake; 8 servings.

If you are celebrating today, I hope you have a happy and safe 4th of July!