Raspberry White Chocolate Lemon Poppyseed Cake

This is just a fun mash up of two of our favourite sweet treat flavour combos. 

Jim adores Raspberry White Chocolate cheesecake.  I of course love lemon poppyseed anything.  So why not make both of us happy at the same time?  It worked like a charm!

This can easily be a snacking cake, a breakfast loaf, cupcakes, or even dessert, with some vanilla ice cream or raspberry sorbet.  It all depends on which pan you decide to bake it up in, and what you tell people it is.  These would make great snacking muffins with some extra streusel topping.  You can bake up this one recipe in a bundt pan, a loaf pan, a square pan as I did today, in muffin liners or even mini bundt pans for something extra special.  

And as for the drizzle on top, just melt some white chocolate chips and call it a day.  That easy, I promise!  I then poured the melted chocolate that had been cooled down a bit, into a plastic sandwich bag which I then snipped one of the corners from.  Instant piping bag.  Just chill the cake after piping on the white chocolate, so that it can set and harden before you slice it up.  Makes for clean slices.

Yes, you’ve seen this recipe several times now, if you are paying attention to the posts.  There’s the original Lemon Mint Yogurt Olive Oil Cake.  There’s the Lemon Blueberry Basil Bundt Cake.  There’s the Cranberry Orange Loaf with Sage and Candied Orange Peel.  There’s the Blood Orange Loaf with Pistachio and Candied Ginger.   And now there’s this little beauty.  Every season has been accounted for I think!  

And it really shows how well herbs work with fruit.  Mint, basil, sage, even rosemary all work so beautifully with fruit and this citrus base.  This time around I didn’t add any herbs. I figured that the poppyseeds and white chocolate were enough flavours going on!  The poppyseeds add the perfect texture!

Truly, the yogurt and olive base make this one of the most moist and tender cakes you will ever bake.  Eating each slice is such a joy.  I am always just a little sad when I know we are down to our last slice or two.  Then it means it’s time to bake another one!

For this cake I used a 9 inch square pan.  And sliced the cake into 9 equal squares.  I made sure the cake was perfectly chilled before slicing it up.  This will ensure that your slices are clean and not messy from cutting through soft chocolate.  Also, the sharper your serrated knife, the better.  And to lift the slices out neatly, with the least amount of disterbance to the top or edges, a small off-set spatula will be your best friend. You could cut them smaller, say into 16 smaller squares, if you wanted to set theses out on a dessert table.  They would be the perfect bite size. But be prepared, someone will ask you for the recipe!

Hope you guys have a lot of fun baking up any one of these loafs or cakes, or whatever you want to call them!! 

Love Jen

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Raspberry White Chocolate Lemon Poppyseed Cake

An absolutely moist and tender Lemon Poppyseed cake is made even more enticing with fresh raspberries and a lovely white chocolate drizzle to finish it all off. The perfect snack, breakfast or even dessert!

Course Dessert

Keyword lemon poppyseed, raspberries, white chocolate

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Servings 9

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tbsp poppyseeds
• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 tsp grated lemon zest From about 2 lemons
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 3/4 cup raspberries cleaned and dried

Chocolate Glaze

• 2/3 cup White chocolate chips

Instructions

Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 9 x 9 cake pan. Line the pan with parchment paper, so that it overhangs two sides by about an inch on either side. Spray with non-stick spray on all four sides.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the poppyseeds and toss to coat evenly with the flour.
3. In another medium-sized bowl, whisk together the yogurt, white sugar, brown sugar, eggs and lemon zest and lemon juice.
4. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
5. With a rubber spatula, fold the olive oil into the batter, making sure it’s completely incorporated. At first it may seem to resist, but slowly keep at it, it will meld, I promise.

6. Put aside about 8 berries, and fold the rest into the batter gently.

7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Gently press the remaining berries into the top of the cake batter. Bake for about 40-50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the centre of the loaf comes out clean. The size of your pan will affect baking times. But start checking after 40 minutes.
8. Once out of the oven, let it cool in the pan on a cooling rack.

Chocolate Glaze

1. While it is cooling, you can melt the chocolate.

2. Place the chocolate in a small bowl set over a small pot with about 2 inches of water in it. Just make sure that the bottom of the bowl isn't actually touching the water below. Bring the water to a rolling simmer. Melt the chocolate.

3. Once the chocolate is completely smooth and melted, remove it from the heat and let it cool down till you can add it to a small freezer or sandwich bag. Once it is inside the bag, seal the bag tightly and holding the bag up, trim away one corner with a pair of scissors. Aiming the bag up will ensure that the chocolate doesn't start pouring out until you are ready to drizzle the cake with it.

4. Just have fun drizzling the top of the cake. Let your inner Jackson Pollack out. Go to town and add as much chocolate as you want. Once you are satisfied, set the cake in the fridge to chill. This will ensure that the chocolate hardens. When ready to slice, use a very good serrated knife. Using a small off-set spatula, bring slices out. Eat!