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.

Final Harvest Report for 2015

Happy Monday Everyone! As most of you are aware of we closed our U-Pick about two weeks ago now (wow how time flies!) and we had such a great season! Thanks to everyone who came and bought/picked from us. We wanted to make one final harvest report, because tho we are done harvesting (and processing!) our blueberries we still are picking and processing blackberries, and Aronia berries.

We have finally finished harvesting and processing our blueberries. If you ordered bulk 30 pound boxes from us you should have received a phone call letting you know they are ready to be picked up. If not, feel free to call us at 541-752-0460.

Our blueberries did incredible this year. We harvested, and processed a record amount! We made it through the hot weather and our farming practices are really starting to show. If you missed it check out the following table. In 2010 we test our berries for what minerals where in them and how they stacked up against our competition. This summer we did it again, and we have seen a ton of improvement. 

Our blackberries are still being harvested and processed. We are not selling any fresh but we will have frozen in the coming weeks. (Just the same as raspberries- we expect to have these suckers back in stock in mid September.)

Our Aronia berries are just a baby crop and we are still at least a week away from picking them. It's just a baby crop and we are excited to start experimenting with them in freeze dried powders and spreads. If you are unaware what Aronia berries are check out this post from us, it give a good over view of them.

We also wish to remind everyone we have switched to our Fall/Winter Hours, Monday - Friday 10 am to 4 pm.

Lastly we are trying to get to 1000 likes on Facebook, when this happens we will be doing a contest/giveaway of our products! So tell your friends, family members, and neighbors about us!

Harvest Report: Close of U-Pick, Fresh Picked Berries, and Farm Stand

We are officially done with the fresh season, our Farm Stand is now closed, and that means our U-Pick is now closed as well.  We had a great season and are already looking forward to next years harvest! We are switching back to our "Fall/Winter" Hours which are Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm Pacific Standard time. 

We are still processing blueberries and blackberries. So if your on our list to call we have some updated information for you: If you ordered Jersey (the small berries) you should have received a phone call from us by now. If you ordered Blue Crop (the bigger berries) we are still processing them and will be calling you soon. If you haven't gotten a call and think you should have you can call us at 541-752-0460.

For those of you who missed our fresh season, we currently have ready to be frozen berries available for purchase in 5 pound quantities or in 30 pound boxes. The variety on these will be Blue Crop. 

We are also excited to be harvesting a baby crop of Aronia berries. We are hopefully to start experiments for products this fall (including freeze dried powder!). 

We expect to be done processing all of this years fruit some time in mid August. 

We will of course continue to offer frozen berries all year round. We expect to have raspberries back in stock sometime in late September. We have frozen blueberries available, and strawberries. For blackberries we currently have 5 pound cases, and later on after harvest we will have the 25 pound cases back in stock. 

Once we have a product back in stock we will announce it on our Twitter and Facebook so be sure to be following us! 

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.

Harvest Report: U-Pick + Fresh Picked Blueberries

Another busy week is in the books for us. We really enjoyed the weather last week and it looks like another week in the 80's for us. Which is great! Our berries are getting sweeter and sweeter. We have heard that some local U-Picks have closed in the area so that may or not mean we will have more U-Pickers when you come visit us! Not to worry though, we haven't even gotten across half the field yet. 

Our Hours are from 9 am to 6 pm everyday. 
The variety is Blue Crop, and our price is $2.75 per pound. Please bring your own containers to take your berries home in.  

It looks like the weather will be in the 80's this week so we do not expect to close the field for cooling at time this week. If temperatures exceed 95 then we will be closing for cooling in the afternoon, but we will let everyone know if that comes up.In our tent we only have fresh picked blueberries right now. The next berry we will have are fresh blackberries which won't be available for a week or so yet. Stay tuned for updates! If your wanting to order a head of time we are more than happy to take it! You can call us at 541-752-0460, or you can email us at sunsetvalleyorganics@gmail.com. 

We do not ship fresh berries, because we can not guarantee the condition they will arrive in.  

In other news we have started harvesting our youngest plantings. These are baby crops and we are very excited to be getting fruit from them. A few years ago we took out all the plantings that were too old, and replanted with new varieties, so we are now able to start seeing a harvest from them. 

Harvest Report: U-Pick Going Strong, End of Fresh Raspberries

We were so busy over the weekend! Thanks to everyone who came out and shared their 4th of July with us! We loved seeing everyone! This week so far it looks like temperatures will be cooler than the last (yay for people and for our berries!). We didn't have any heat damage because of how we grow our berries as well as the cooling we did in the afternoon. We want to say thank you for your understanding and patients during those hot days. 

As long as the weather stays below 95 we will have our U-Pick open during our business hours this week. If the weather decides to jump back up then we will be cooling again in the afternoons. We will announce that here on our blog as well as on Twitter and Facebook. 

Our U-Pick is still looking great and super loaded! We haven't even picked out the first 5 rows yet, and it's not from a lack of people coming to see us! Our bushes are just that loaded!

Our Hours are from 9 am to 6 pm everyday. 
The variety is Blue Crop, and our price is $2.75 per pound. Please bring your own containers to take your berries home in.  

In our tent we only have fresh picked blueberries. Our raspberries are officially done, if you missed the fresh ones no worries, we will have frozen available starting sometime in late August or early September. 

The next berry we will have are fresh blackberries which won't be available for a few weeks still. 

It's going to be a great week! If you have any questions you can call us at 
541-752-0460 during business hours. 

Harvest Update: Raspberries, Blueberries + More!

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for coming to check in! We are happy to report the red raspberries are in full swing and are selling like hot cakes. We are having a hard time picking enough to keep them at the stand. So if your wanting to get your hands on some of these awesome berries, in a big way, please call a head and place your order. This way we can guarantee  you will have all the raspberries your heart can desire.

For our fresh picked blueberries we are still picking duke. We think that next week we change our variety to Blue Crop. These are our big, sweet berries that are the same variety for our U-Pick Field.

Speaking of U-Pick, we are still expecting to open our field around the 4th of July which is coming up! Our price per pound will be $2.75.

For those of you who are curious we have been tireless working on black raspberries, making sure they will be nice and healthy for next year. We have been going out and picking some that are just for us. But they are making us really excited, and we are so proud to be adding this to our collection of berries we offer.

The blackberries have finished blooming and we are now seeing a fantastic berry set.