Raspberry Cream Cheese White Cake

Individually, neither picture seemed impressive enough, so I included both in hopes it adequately conveys how sinfully delightful this is!

A moist, heavy cake topped with a cream cheese icing smothered with juicy berries. Summer Heaven! I got this from a really good friend in Utah, Rachel Van Beekum. She was the head baker at a grocery store and was always good for some food advice. This is one of her crowning achievements! Sure do miss her...

Cake:
1 C butter {no wonder it's so good!}
1 C water
2 C flour
2 C sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 C milk or buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter and water. Bring to a boil. Pour over flour, sugar and salt. Mix well. Beat eggs and add along with buttermilk, soda and vanilla. Beat. Pour into greased 9x13" pan. Bake 30 minutes. Cool.

Cream Cheese frosting:
1 pkg cream cheese, softened
2 C sugar
2 tbsp milk

Mix cream cheese, sugar and milk until smooth. Spread over cake.

Fruit:
The recipe calls for fresh fruit, but I like to use a 12 oz bag of frozen mixed berries. I thaw it, then mash it. This gives it lots of juice that's sweet and tangy. If you want lots of juice with fresh fruit, just sprinkle a couple tbsp over your fruit then let it sit for an hour or so. That brings out the natural juice of the fruit. Spoon the fruit over the cream cheese layer and you can serve immediately, but I like to refrigerate the whole thing for a couple hours.

One last tip- In case you hadn't noticed, there is a LOT of sugar in this. But the fruit makes it healthy. Right??? If you don't mix the cake or cream cheese mixture enough then you will get a little crunch of the sugar granuales in your cake. Some people don't like to be reminded of how sugar-laden their food is, but we kinda like it better with that extra bit of texture.

Think I'm going to check if we still have leftovers...