Fresh Blackberry Cake with Butter Cream Frosting

Summer is winding down in Oregon, and most of our harvest is over. We just have aronia berries left. This summer went so fast, but the weather was also so weird and caused all of our crops to be much later than expected. The only crop that was "on time" was our raspberries. This past week we wrapped up harvesting on our blackberries, and with the few last fresh ones we made this delicious cake to celebrate a harvest well done.

We used a white sponge as a base for our cake, with layers of buttercream and fresh blackberries bursting with sweetness in the middle of the cake.

Ingredients: 

For the Cake

• 1 C Salted Butter, Softened
• 1 1/2 C Sugar
• 2 TSP Almond Extract 
• 3 1/2 C Flour
• 4 TSP Baking Powder
• 1/2 TSP Salt
• 6 Large Eggs,  Room Temp
• 1 1/2 C Milk, Room Temp

For the Frosting

• 1 1/2 C Butter, Softened
• 1 1/2 TSP Vanilla Extract
• 6  C Powdered Sugar
• 6 TBSP Heavy Whipping Cream
• Food Coloring (optional)
• Extract for Flavor (optional) 

We used about 2 cups of fresh Blackberries, our cake is 9 inches in dimeter. You can use more or less depending on your cake size and shape. 

Directions: 

1. Grease three 9-inch pans. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in almond extract.
3. Use a fork to combine the eggs and milk together in a bowl or 2 cup liquid measuring cup. Set aside.
4. In another mixing bowl stir together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.
5. Add ⅓ of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix in until just combined. Add in half of the milk mixture and combine. Add in another ⅓ of the dry ingredients until combined followed by the remainder of the milk mixture. Add in the remainder of the dry ingredients and mix with the hand mixer until just combined, using a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom to make sure everything is mixed in.
6. Divide the batter among the three prepared pans. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. Let sit in pans for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before layering and frosting. 
7. To make the frosting: Use mixer (hand or stand) to whip softened butter and vanilla extract together. Slowly add in powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time. Thin out with milk if it gets too thick.

Harvest Report: Last Call for U-Pick Blueberries

We had a very exciting weekend, not only was it perfect picking weather for blueberries but we also had a new "toy" at the farm stand.

We got a square, and it is so great! We are really loving it so far.

Things have been so crazy around the farm over the last week, we are machine harvesting, we are picking more fields that have baby crops of blueberries on them, and we are machine picking blackberries. So people are literally running from one point to another, there is always fruit being loaded into our cold rooms (which are full, almost over flowing) we have been able to pick (from the field) and process (for the mass frozen market) at about the same rate so any time something comes in something is finished processing. We have never had this happen before, but it is great! Our crops are producing so much!

First big announcement we have is that this is the last full week we will be open for U-Pick blueberry picking. Our last day is going to be SUNDAY AUGUST 2, 2015. We will have normal hours for that day, 9 am to 6 pm.

And everyday leading up to it we will be open at the farm stand from 9 am to 6 pm, however Wednesday through the weekend is looking to be 95+ degrees, which means we may be closing in the afternoons for U-Pick to cool the field. We will post on Facebook and Twitter about any closures. You can also call us at 541-752-0460 before heading our way to see if we have the field open or closed.

At our farm stand we still have fresh picked blueberries, their variety has changed to Liberty, its a newer variety, not as sweet as the Blue Crop but just as huge. We also have fresh picked blackberries, their variety is Chesters.

Now for those of you who are on our waiting lists of wanting to pick up 30 Pound boxes we have started that process, but we are also super busy making sure all the fruit we can pick is done so before we get into this 100 degree weather. We have finished the Jerseys and they have been processed, it will take a few days for the boxes to be frozen, when they are that is when we will start calling people. For those of you who Ordered Blue Crop, today is the first day we are processing those, so it will still be a while before we call you about them.

Thank you for your patients with us this week, we have never been so busy at one time with so many berries and fruit coming off at once!

Harvest Report: Fresh Blueberries, Blackberries, U-Pick + More!

It's been another week! We had a great weekend, and we very happy that we could keep the field open during the high temperatures. Thanks to everyone who called or contacted us on social media about field closures!

This week is the official start of our processing line for the 30 pound boxes. We are expecting to start that on Wednesday, so for those of you who are on our list/ interested in the ready to freeze 30 pound boxes you will be receiving phone calls regarding your orders probably late this week or early next week (depends on what we are picking and processing it). It's also why this is being posted so late in the day, I have been busy running around making sure everything is in place and ready to go for on Wednesday.

This year our 30 pound boxes will be $100.00 each.

We have basically finished picking our baby plantings of blueberries, we have one field left to do which just isn't quite ripe yet. The baby plantings of blueberries are ones that replaced old plants and it's the first harvest we have been able to take from them, which is very exciting for us.

Our Farm Stand is still open.
Our hours are: 9 am to 6 pm everyday (including weekends).
The variety for our U-Pick field is Blue Crop.
U-Pick (blueberry) Price is $2.75 per pound.
If you need to get a hold of us to place and order or to answer questions you can reach us
at 541-752-0460.

We would like to remind you that if you received a postcard in the mail from us, it has a coupon on it so please bring it with you when you come visit us!

Blueberries: 

Fresh Picked Blueberries are still going strong. The variety is blue crop, this is the variety we will continue to have until the end of the season. If your wanting order of 1+ flats (10 pounds per flat) then please give us a call and place an order.

U-Pick is going strong, we are about half way across the field. With plenty of untouched rows still waiting to be picked. The weather is expected to be in the 80's again all week and into the weekend. If this changes and we decide to close for cooling we will let everyone know a head of time. At this time we are also able to predict a end of season, we are thinking that right now is sorta in the middle and our last day will be around the 2nd of August, we will confirm this as we get closer to the end of the season.


(Friendly reminder: please bring containers to take your berries home in, we are unable to supply containers.)

Blackberries:

We now are able to offer blackberries on a pick to order basis. We will have them for this week and next week for sure. We aren't able to offer them on hand at the farm stand because we are all tied up with blueberries, and our packing shed. The blackberry variety is called Chester, they are huge, seriously the average berry is at least 3/4 the size of my thumb.  They are super sweet and so fun to eat. My current favorite way to enjoy them is to have them in an ice cold smoothie after I get home from a day of working on the farm.

The price for blackberries are: 2 1/2 pounds for $20.00 & 5 pounds for $30.00

We do not offer U-Pick for blackberries.

May 2015 News from Around The Farm

We finally got some much needed sunshine and we started putting in trellising into our planting of Black Raspberries. We have also been busy feeding all of our crops and helping them along their way to summer harvest. It’s really important to make sure our crops are being fed now and during harvest so that not only does the plant produce fruit but also that the plant can take care of itself. Whether that means putting energy towards growing, fending off diseases or however else that plant needs to do.   In April we also participated in a couple of community events. If you're interested in seeing photos from our adventures click here for Earth Day event and click here for Tyee’s Open House. Office Hours This is probably the last month we will be in our Winter hours (yay!) But until we say otherwise we will continue with our Winter Hours: Monday to Friday 10 am to 4 pm PST.

Frozen Raspberries Are Sold Out This is the first year since having raspberries that we have sold out of them. So we will not have that as an option on our website until we have this coming harvests berries are packed and ready. The good news is that we are currently guess-timating that our Raspberries will be coming on some time in June, so hopefully no one has to wait too long. Better Shipping Rates are Over Until Winter Thank you to everyone who has ordered over the last few months to cash in on those awesome shipping rates! The weather is getting warmer and that means we have to insist on shipping 2 day air again. When the weather starts getting cold again we will once again offer these better rates. Just because the better rates are gone does not mean we are out of frozen! We will continue to offer frozen berries as normal. Social Media Shenanigans We had such a great month interacting with you guys! If you missed it we have reactivated our Twitter account, and been posting far more to facebook,Pinterest, and our blog. This month on our blog we are focusing on Health Awareness. Today you will be able to find our post of what this means to us and some tips about what you can do to live healthier. Then every Saturday this month, you will be able to find delicious recipes that go along with this theme. Other posts we have coming up this month will be concerning summer activities for the farm and what you all can expect. Plus we will have a huge announcement about our strawberries! Our Pinterest board for May will be all about Mother’s Day, May Day, and Brunch! We are posting great recipes, beautiful images of wonderful bouquets, and fantastic ideas for gifts for Mother’s Day. Facebook & Twitter are great places to find out if we are attending any events, for example we didn’t know we would be attending the events we did in when we sent out April’s newsletter so we put it all over Facebook & Twitter. We also have been posting a ton of photos of this spring's bloom. As well as articles we run into and want to share with everyone! Post Card Reminders: Every year we send out postcards for reminders about our fresh season coming up. This year there will be a coupon attached to it so don’t loose it, and remember to bring it with you when you visit us! Usually when we send these out we are getting really close to our first berry being ready. Right now we anticipate sending them out at the end of May. Keep an eye on our social media for when we actually do. This year we will also be letting everyone know when we have U-Picks open as well as when each berry and variety we have is ready, via our social media, so it’s super important if you're not following us to do so. We don’t want you to miss anything! Coupons & Specials For Mother’s Day we do have a special going. For $17.99 (includes shipping) you can send your loved one a special gift that includes a Chocolate Blueberry Cluster and a 4 oz Dried Blueberry. We ship nation wide so its a great healthy gift! We also are extending our special in Willamette Living Magazine to the end of June. Raspberry & Lemon Curd Tarts Inspired From Cooks With Cocktails Ingredients: FOR THE LEMON CURD ½ cup lemon juice 1 tbsp lemon rind 4 egg yolk 1 whole egg 1 cup sugar ½ cup plus 2 tbsp butter FOR THE RASPBERRY CURD ½ cup raspberry juice 4 egg yolk 1 whole egg ¾ cup sugar ½ cup plus 2 tbsp butter FOR THE SHORTBREAD 1½ cup flour ½ cup cold butter ¾ cup sugar Icing sugar for dusting (optional) Directions: FOR THE LEMON CURD Put lemon juice, lemon rind, butter on a double boiler and heat till butter melts. Then take it off the heat. Beat eggs in a bowl till foamy with a whisk or on high speed in a mixer. Gradually add the sugar till eggs are pale and very thick. This should take about 4 - 5 mins. Put lemon mixture still in the double boiler back on the heat, add the egg mixture and whisk. Cook till it thickens. It should coat a wooden spoon well. Set aside. FOR THE RASPBERRY CURD Take a bag of frozen raspberry's and thaw. When completely thawed, blend up the raspberries, put in a strainer and strain till you get ½ a cup of juice. Put the raspberry juice, butter on double boiler and heat till butter melts then take off the heat. Beat eggs in a bowl till foamy with a whisk or on high speed in a mixer. Gradually add the sugar till eggs are pale and very thick. This should take about 4 - 5 mins. Put raspberry mixture still in the double boiler back on the heat, add the egg mixture and whisk. Cook till it thickens. It should coat a wooden spoon well. Set aside. FOR THE SHORTBREAD Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place all the ingredient in a food processor or mixer and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for about ½ hour. Take it out of the fridge, divide into 12 equal size balls. Roll the dough ball between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Place in the pan mould or tart shell. Place a piece of parchment over each shell and fill with pie weights. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 mins. Remove from the oven. Most likely the shell will have fallen a little it down the sides of the mould. You will have to use a deep spoon top push down the crust and move it up the side of the pan. A round table spoon works really well. Cool completely. TO ASSEMBLE Take a tart shell and fill it with lemon curd almost all the way to the top. Next place a layer of raspberry curd on top. Continue with the rest of the shells. Sprinkle with icing sugar if desired. Indulge...

April Rain Brings May Flowers....

Or at least that's what they say. We have been getting our fair share of rain here on the farm. We are so happy spring is in full swing, for those of you who have been following us on Facebook you have seen all the photos we have been posting of the process our Blueberries have been going through into full bloom. They are so beautiful to see. Our Raspberries and Blackberries won’t be blooming until later, and when they do you can bet we'll be sharing! So be                                                                                                            sure to be following us on Facebook! We have also been selling a ton of our dried blueberries. They are so delicious and make for a great snack! They are great in homemade granola, trail mix, muffins, cold cereal, oatmeal, basically anything you can think of these guys are great to throw into! We dry all of them here on our farm. We start with our sweetest berries; that during our harvest are washed, and cleaned by going over our in house packing line. They are packed into 30 pound boxes and held in freezers until we are ready to dry them. Then when ever we are running low on our dried blueberries we grab a couple of boxes and start the process of drying them. We have two commercial dryers at our disposal. We fill them and let them dry for anywhere 8 hours to 10 hours depending on the weather outside. Then we run moisture tests to make sure everything is stable and won’t mold. Then we package them and have them ready to go!

We have also finally finished all of our pruning around the farm! It feels like we have been mentioning pruning forever, but it’s a lot of hard work, that takes care and time to be done right. It’s important to prune a plant, pruning influences how a plant grows. Depending on what you want out of the plant you can help determine what the plant puts it’s energy into. Either plant growth (more limbs) or production (more fruit). If you have plants that are very small, or that are young you want the plant to focus on growth. If your plant is nice and big, and mature then you would want more production. If you haven’t pruned your plants yet there is still time! See our blog post that is specific to blueberries. 

Office Hours:

Spring is here, but we are still on our “Winter” hours of Monday to Friday 10 am to 4 pm Pacific time.

Better Shipping Rates Are Coming

To An End

Those of you who have taken advantage of our offer we thank you so much, we are so happy we can provide these better rates! However we know some of you have been waiting to place that order. And now is basically the final call. For people in the states in the Pacific Northwest (including: Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Nevada) we can easily provide better rates still. For anyone outside of these states please call us and we will see what we can do. As temperature rise we will no longer be able to offer these rates. April will be the last month we can offer general better rates, then it will be gone until next winter. You can call us at 541-752-0460 (Monday to Friday 10 am to 4 pm Pacific time).

Social Media Updates:

We have been hard at working updating and making changes. We are happy to announce our blog is finally back up and running. We would also like to announce our twitter account is back to being active. So all of those of you who prefer twitter to Facebook we will be posting a great deal there as well from now on. We appreciate all the patients everyone has had. This has been a very long bumpy road. We will continue to make more changes and improvements during the year and are excited for things we have coming.

You can find us now on Local Harvest. Local Harvest is a great resource to find farmers who produce local goods. They have a Local Harvest National Directory so even if you're on the East Coast you can use this to find farmers and vendors in your area! Click here to learn more about them.

Our Pinterest Board will be a continuation of Leap into Spring since we are just having so much fun finding recipes, gardening tips, decor inspiration, and all things to do with spring!

Organics To You

Some of you may already know about this company. For those of you who don’t they are a Portland, OR based company who has been delivery local goods to the good people of portland for the last 14 years. Now they have taken their business online and are buying products from vendors/farmers in Oregon to be delivered to anyone in Oregon! They have recently started buying our Blueberry Spread, we are so excited by their business and are happy to be supplying them with a fantastic healthy living choice! Click here to check them out.

Savings & Coupons

This month we have an ad in Willamette Living Magazine that offers a special code for our Tea. So keep your eyes peeled for that (this may also appear in the May edition, gotta keep you all on your toes)!

For those of you who use Facebook & Twitter we will be offering a code for our Teas here as well. Be sure to keep an eye out for those. They will be good for the whole month of April!

June Updates- It's Berry Season!

We have finished up our fresh strawberry season and are leaping feet first into  fresh raspberry and blueberry season (our blueberry season is two weeks early this year!). Our fresh raspberry flats are $30 there are five pounds per flat. Our fresh blueberries are $38 per flat with ten pounds per flat (the current variety is duke). Our farm stand is open right now where you can purchase fresh raspberries and blueberries as well as any of our other products. Blackberries will be ready sometime in late August or early September.

U-Pick Field

Right now we are predicting we will be opening the U-Pick blueberry field around the first of July, that may change depending on what kind of weather we have. Price for U-Pick is $2.75 per pound.

Frozen & Ready to be Frozen Berries

We are anticipating that we will have frozen strawberries in July. It won't be until August sometime that we will have raspberries and blueberries ready for purchase. If you are interested in any of these berries you can pre-order now by sending us a message on Facebook or calling us at (541)752-0460 or emailing us at sunsetvalleyorganics@gmail.com.  

Around the Farm

Not only are we busy with harvest but we are also planting black raspberries that we will start taking fruit from in two years. Black Raspberries, affectionately known as “Blackcaps” by growers, are native to North America. These uniquely flavored berries are popular in specialty foods, especially jams and ice cream. The fruit is blue-black, round and small, and there’s a whitish bloom on the exterior of the berry. Black raspberries have a distinct and moderately tart flavor, small seed and like the red raspberry, contain a hollow core.

Health Benefits of Black Raspberries:

• Contain high levels of anthocyanins, which give black raspberries their rich, dark color. Anthocyanins work as antioxidants to help fight free radical damage in the body
• Antioxidant levels of foods are sometimes measured as ORAC (oxygen radical absorption capacity). The ORAC level of black raspberries is 77 μmoles/TE/g, about three times higher than blueberries, a very powerful antioxidant.
• Rich in ellagic acid. Ellagic acid is a phenolic compound known to help fight cancer, viruses and bacteria.
• University studies are underway to determine black raspberries’ ability to slow the growth of certain cancers. In vitro studies have shown that extracts of raspberries and blackberries may slow the growth of breast, cervical, colon and esophageal cancers.
• Studies at Ohio State University showed a 60–80 % reduction in colon tumors in rats fed a diet with black raspberries added.
• Studies at Ohio State University showed an 80% reduction in esophageal cancers in mice fed a 5-10% diet of black raspberries.

We are excited and please that this addition to our collection of berries will be able to offer yet another delicious way to enjoy healthy living. 

Have you ever wondered about how we keep birds out of our fields? Well here is our secrete: we use falcons & falconers to come and watch over our fields for about a month and a half during harvest. This is when our berries have turned blue right up to just before we have finished. We mostly use the in our blueberry fields since that is our largest berry crop. 

Bird damage across the US costs growers in the hundreds of millions in annual profit, there are multiple practices of bird prevention from noise-makers, to scarecrows in the end though bird prevention is often a losing battle. That is until the falcon arrives, this natural pretor, hunting other birds as their food source, provides the prefect solution. With falcons patrolling fields we have seen an astounding decrease in the amount of flocks we have stalking our fields. 

The falcons are trained to frighten, not eat, sparrows and starling, however there can be some over lap. Normally though the trainer will feed them every day.  The most common crops falcons are used to protect are blueberries, cherries, and grapes. They are flown for 5-6 month covering multiple crops as they ripen and migrate with the crops. 

Later this month we will have an interview with our falconer up here on our blog so keep an eye out for when it gets posted. In the mean time here is an article that talks about falcon crop protection.  

Brambleberries, Dewberry, Thimebleberry & Lawers.

(Your probably wondering about the wonky title right? These are all other names the blackberry is known by!)

We're nearing the end of summer which means blackberries are in full swing, and while we don't have any fresh you can still find them at the farmer's markets and along the side of the road. Amazing how everything was so early this year! Here are some recipes that can help spark some inspiration!

Food for thought:
Did you know blackberries are really good for your health? While low in sodium these delicious specks of black gold are only 62 calories per cup, making them perfect for those watching their calorie in take. We all know from blueberries the darker the fruit the higher the level of antioxidants are, this has a direct effect on lowering the risk of some cancers. Blackberries can cause the tightening of tissue and they keep your brain alert.

Blackberry Fizz
 Mix 1.5 oz vodka, 5 crushed blackberries, 3 oz lemonade with a spritz of soda water for the perfect Blackberry Fizz.
 


Blackberry Cobbler
Ingredients:

• 4 cups fresh blackberries
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 large egg 
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted $
• Whipped cream (optional)
• Garnish: fresh mint sprig

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Place blackberries in a lightly greased 8-inch square baking dish; sprinkle with lemon juice. Stir together egg, sugar, and flour in a medium bowl until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle over fruit. Drizzle melted butter over topping. Bake at 375° for 35 minutes or until lightly browned and bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream, if desired. Garnish with fresh mint sprig, if desired.
2. For a neat presentation, bake for the same amount of time in 6 (8-oz.) ramekins on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet.