I love this time of year and the beautiful berries and fresh produce choices. The garden is coming along nicely and I’ll have some zucchini soon to share with friends and family (love those zucchini blossoms, too!).
I am a moderator on the Cooking.com website and encourage you to check out our forum for the members. There are some delicious tried and true recipes there and lot of camaraderie amongst the members as they encourage, advise and share recipes with one another.
I recently saw a posting by one of our members (Ms. Frannie) where she told us about a Raspberry Buttermilk cake that she’d tried. (Recipe came from June 2009 Gourmet Magazine:
click—>>> here)
I don’t usually have either raspberries OR buttermilk on hand but just happened to have buttermilk to make Ranch Dressing. I bought some beautiful raspberries and decided to try making this last night. Wow, it was great! This is one of those that you want to eat while it is hot out of the oven. It is like a coffee cake with a slightly crunchy sugar topping. Loved it! I will be adding this to the recipe book!
I added a little less raspberries than the recipe called for…
On a healthier note, I’m wondering if I eat carrots & raisins and add sugar and mayo, have I wiped out all the benefits? 
I recently had some extra carrots and had a craving for Carrot & Raisin salad. I found a recipe on the internet and made a few adjustments.
2 cups finely shredded carrots
1/3 cup raisins
1 cup drained crushed pineapple or pineapple tidbits
1/3 cup mayonaise
1 TBSP lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1 TBSP sugar
Mix mayo with lemon juice, salt and sugar. Add raisins and let sit in the refrigerator about a half hour. Toss carrots with pineapple and add raisin mayo mixture. This is even better if marinated overnight!
Here is the result:
Hey, I can’t wait to taste the Raspberry Buttermilk cake. I’ll take you up on the idea to taste it hot out of the oven. Better yet, what do you think of dripping over or pouring in some Chambord? Ooooh..berry good!
Love the photo of the Carrot & Raisin salad. I’m always on the hunt for good carrot salad and I nearly have a fork in a bowl made from this recipe. How’d you know? Thank you for posting!
Wonder what the next Daring Challenge will be….
I’ve made that cake before but I added a layer of cheese filling! It’s a delicious cake, and yours turned out gorgeous! Although I’m not a huge carrot-raisin salad fan, unless it’s piled on top of a salad bar salad, yours looks and sounds good!