Raspberry Cream Cheese Swirl

When I was home in Austin last week, I was in charge of making the desserts for my mom’s giant Eid party. One of the desserts I made was the giant chocolate banana cream pie in the previous entry. The other dessert was a raspberry cream cheese swirl cake. I used my go-to yellow cake recipe from The Kitchn: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/diy-recipe/recipe-diy-yellow-cake-014637 This is such a fantastic all-purpose recipe – it works with any filling or frosting, as cupcakes or sheetcake. And it’s SO easy to make! One bowl, 10 minutes, pop it in the oven!

I made a basic cream cheese buttercream: 2 blocks of cream cheese, one stick of butter, about 2 cups powdered sugar. For the raspberry, I used this fantastic raspberry fruit butter I found at Central Market. To create the swirl design, I frosted the cake with the buttercream, then laid thin stripes of raspberry across the cake. I used a butter knife and cut stripes across the cake vertically, horizontally, and on both diagonals. Voila – swirl! I garnished the tray with fresh raspberries and mint leaves. I have to say, I was really pleased with the result.

ps: click on the thumbnails to see larger versions of the pics!