Hazy, pretty, pink – like looking through clouds – this is what one bite of this raspberry brownie cake, frosted in smooth, lightly sweet and airy raspberry meringue buttercream topped with a shiny chocolate glaze will do to your vision. I’ve known Linda of Call Me Cupcake as an online cake friend for many years now – I’ve seen her go from tiny Flickr account to discovering and honing her style to massive internet overtaking thanks to her INSANE talent. She has the ability to create achingly beautiful, cry-worthy-they’re-so-good photographs of perfectly styled cakes, desserts, bread, anything. A picture of her HAND touching a cup of coffee is spectacular. She’s just that brilliant. (I have an interview with her coming up for my series Sugar Crush, too!)
She just released her THIRD book in Sweden – this woman is a creative typhoon – and her first book, Lomelino’s Cakes, has been translated to English and released in North America – now us English-speaking hillbillies can get in the kitchen and bake up some of her beautiful recipes.
Flipping through the pages of her book, the raspberry brownie cake recipe caught my eye. While making it, I found the process wonderfully methodical and meditative. There are several steps, which forced me to slow it down (I’m so used to slamming together my own anciently-memorized cakes) and read ingredients, follow steps and put it all together.
I realized this is the sheer beauty of cookbooks, and this book in particular. Creating individual components and having little victories – like my meringue whipping properly, or bringing my buttercream back to life after it broke (there are tips in the book to fix such things!) or my chocolate glaze coming together shinily and smoothly. Then, bringing all the components together in a perfectly realized cake: deep brownie layers studded with tart raspberries, light buttery raspberry frosting and that thick creamy chocolate glaze dripping happily down the sides. If baking could be mindful meditation, I’d call the recipes in Lomelino’s Cakes “cake yoga.” So set aside an afternoon for yourself, crank up a podcast, choose an occasion or just bake for the hell of it – then dive in to this raspberry brownie cake.
Raspberry Brownie Cake
ingredients
For the cake
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 7 ounces dark chocolate, 70% cocoa
- 1¼ cups light brown sugar
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 ¾ cups + 2 tablespoons flour
- 6 tablespoons cocoa powder, I used Dutch process
- 1 teaspoon baking bowder
- 3½ ounces raspberries, I used fresh but frozen can be substituted
For the meringue buttercream
- 4 large egg whites
- ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2¼ sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3½ ounces raspberries
- small amount of pink gel food colouring
For the chocolate glaze
- 3½ ounces dark chocolate, 70% cocoa
- ½ stick unsalted butter
instructions
Make the cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Butter and flour three 7-inch cake pans. Line with parchment paper circles.
- Cut the butter into cubes, and coarsely chop the chocolate. Melt the butter and chocolate together at low heat in a large saucepan. Let cool.
- Beat the light brown sugar, granulated sugar and eggs until light and airy, about 3 minutes.
- Mix the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a separate bowl.
- Pour the chocolate and butter mixture into the sugar and egg mixture, and beat to a smooth batter. Sift in the dry ingredients, and mix until the batter is smooth. Divide the batter evenly among the cake pans, and level the surface with an offset spatula. Press a portion of the raspberries into each cake layer; set aside the remainder for decoration.
- Bake the layers for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs.
Make the meringue buttercream
- Pour the egg whites and sugar into a heatproof bowl. Place it on top of a double boiler over a pot of simmering water. Whisk continually until the mixture reaches 150 degrees Farenheit or the sugar crystals have dissolved. Remove the bowl from heat.
- Continue to beat the mixture with an electric beater or hand mixer until it is as white and fluffy as a meringue. Beat until the mixture is cool, up to 10 minutes.
- Add the butter a little at a time. After all the butter has been incorporated, beat for another 3-5 minutes.
- Purée the raspberries in a blender. Press the purée through a fine mesh to remove the seeds.
- Mix the purée with the buttercream, beating until smooth. Add a tiny amount of gel colour to make it more pink.
Make the glaze
- Break the chocolate into pieces and dice the butter.
- Carefully melt the butter with the chocolate in a saucepan over low heat, and let it cool. The glaze will thicken somewhat but still be fluid.
- Once you’ve frosted and filled the cake, add the glaze on top and garnish with the remaining raspberries.
Mihaela Crisan
I keep dreaming about this cake I made last year. It was a chocolate cake, soaked in some boozy syrup, with mascarpone and heavy cream frosting and good old sliced bananas. So simple, yet so so good :)
Cluj Napoca, Romania.
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
holy smokes that cake sounds SO GOOD! recipe? ^__^
molly yeh
THESE PHOTOS! THIS CAKE!!! stahp, this is amazing. i am so excited that linda’s book is out in english!!!! can i enter this giveaway a million times??1!! my dream cake is funfetti. obvi. <3
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
hehe! FUNFETTI! thanks sweet friend! xoxo
steph
ooh this is so, so dreamy. and i love the idea of cake yoga. i feel like everyone would benefit from slowing down a little :)
lovely photos as always!
xoxo
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
haha! i’m so into the slow baking movement. let’s make TSHIRTS! thanks sweet steph!! xoxo
Cecilia Pérez
WHY EVERYBODY EXCEPT ME HAVE THE BOOK!?!?
I want it :((
But I will have to wait until it’s sold here in Spain
Sad kisses from Cecilia
Melissa
hmmm … chocolate and caramel with a crazy surprise in the middle, like one of the piñata cakes I’ve seen recently. Yum. Ooh and coconut on top.
Wynne
I love a good old red velvet with cream cheese frosting and possibly some chocolate glaze on top as well, mmmmm just thinking about it makes me hungry! I live in London, UK :)
Laura
I’m loving all things Rose flavored right now :).
Love from the USA <3!
Jen
chocolate and meringue buttercream along with a layer of vanilla buttercream would definitely be a dream flavour :) thanks for sharing the recipe, can’t wait to try it! Jen in Vancouver Canada
chickie brewer
The Raspberry Brownie cake looks and must taste soooo delicious!
Megan
My dream cake is strawberry w/ chocolate icing… This cake looks amazing though and it might be my new dream cake lmao I can’t wait to make it!
Megan in Norman, OK
Jenny
Ummm all the cake flavor of the world are a dream to me! But I’m a sucker for anything involving s’mores.
Kristin Burnett Knight
I dream of peach vanilla bean cake brushed with bourbon ginger syrup, topped with fluffy roasted peach frosting & bourbon cacao nib caramel corn! Oh, I reside in Florida, US.
Denise Plant
With the onset of the holidays I’d say my dream cake flavor is egg nog! I live in the USA! California to be exact! Thanks for the tip on Instgram ;)
Sagrario Pérez
Wow! That looks so yummy! I dream with a chocolate pepper cake with salted caramel buttercream and spiced rum syrup. Scrumptious! Oh! And I live in Sonora, México.
elizabeth
Yumm. I would love to make a mango white chocolate cake with a rasberry frosting ;) I live in Perth australia
Zoë
I’d love to have some kind of extravagant dark chocolate and peanut butter cake! Mmmmm I love cake
Felicity
My absolute favourite cake flavour is elderflower and coconut, it’s a match made in heaven!
Geelong, Australia
Evelyn
My dream cake would be a bubblegum flavoured cake covered in different flavors of merigue buttercream to make every bite of cake a surprise! Would be amazing if the layers inside are filled with berries compote as well. Mm-hmm! Hopefully I’ll be able to bake that one day! Oh and I reside in Singapore, hello all the way from Asia :)
Eden
I’m currently in Edmonton, Canada and my faaaavourite flavour is a rich chocolate cake with pumpkin icing and chocolate ganache! So good!
Anita
I love all cakes! However, my Mum’s pavlova is truly a heavenly thing. It is light and airy on the inside and sweet and crunchy on the outside, then a delicious creamy and tangy topping of light-as-air whipped cream and fresh raspberries and passionfruit. I’m from Melbourne, Australia. Thanks for the chance to win this wonderful book.
Nicole
A rose and chocolate ganache cake- perfumey and rich!!! Your cakes are an inspiration to novices like myself. I’m a South African who moved to Vancouver, Canada 7 weeks ago- this recipe book is on my wish list! Nom nom!
Efi
Hello! I’m Efi from Athens, Greece. My dream cake flavor would be a combination of chocolate and orange, they are delicious together!
Lyndsay // Coco Cake Land
Hi Efi! You won the draw for a copy of Lomelino’s Cakes! please send me an email to lyndsay (at) cococake (dot) com to claim your prize. Congratulations!
Efi
I never thought I’d win!! Thank you Coco Cake Land & thank you Linda Lomelino! I absolutely love both of your blogs!
Simone Richards
Dreamiest dream cake is something involving salted caramel, peanut and chocolate – topped with a big mountain of cream squirted from a can – love that stuff! I can see raspberry brownie cake becoming a firm fave too!
Simone Richards
Oh and I’m from Canberra, Australia!
Shona
I am dreaming about eating a slice of Turkish delight cake – chocolate cake with a rosewater frosting ! Yum !
Jessica
oohh it would have to be a peanut butter BANANA & jelly layer cake with homemade strawberry jam + toasty ginger cookie crumbs thrown in the mix for good measure!
Melbourne, Australia
Karen
my dream cake would be a chocolate, banana, peanut butter cake with salted caramel thrown in there somewhere :)
shivesh bhatia
Hi. I am from New Delhi, India. My dream cake would a banoffee cake! Two layers of flavorful banana cakes with fluffy caramel frosting and a beautiful caramel sauce!
Annoushka
Greetings from India!
My dream cake is just, eating dark chocolate mud cake batter dunked in buttery cookie crumbs, right off the spatula, preferably with some fluffy whipped cream and fresh tart berries. Aw yum :)
Rachel Peers
Looks absolutely amazzzzzzing! Can’t wait to make this
Julie
Hello from Pretoria, South Africa! This cake looks gorgeous, and I’m sure the rest of the cookbook is absolutely stunning – I’ve been a fan of “Call Me Cupcake” for a while now, and I agree with you that Linda really is incredibly talented :) I think when it comes to a dream cake flavour I would probably stick to simple flavours done well, so I’d choose really dark chocolate with a healthy drizzle of salted caramel.
Eva
I love Linda’s work! I’m a sucker for chocolate & raspberry combos, so simple but so good! :) Yesterday I made a flourless chocolate cake & layered it with raspberries & a mascarpone frosting. On top I sprinkled mint chocolate. I have two pieces left for todays afternoon snack & can’t wait for this afternoon haha :)
I live in Malmö, Sweden.
Quela Gil
Stunning cake!!
How many grams are the sticks of butter that you use? thanks ;)