Living in the country, its definitely not a rarity to claim to have a berry bush of some sort in my childhood front yard. Especially not living in the Northwest.

Back when I was a kid, it seemed like everyone wanted theirs gone. All of our neighbours were often seen in the yard, donning their full on yard armor- Carhartts, Flannel, leather gloves, long boots.. The real serious ones even wearing some sort of crazy headgear consisting of a fine mesh screen being held at a distance from the face, suspended by some sort of wirework.  Always with clippers, pruning shears, scissors, shovels, rakes, post hole diggers. Some sort of weaponry against the berry bushes.

I think for a while my parents were even included in this group. Always attempting to remove the berry bush on the side of the house. Claiming it was a danger, it was attracting bees, it was an eye sore.  The only problem with being against the berry bushes, is that you have to commit to your cause, and my parents weren’t so good with that.

Noneneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com the less, we ended up with a pretty large sized blackberry bush attached to the side of our toolshed. It started out fairly small and manageable, but quickly over a particularly damp summers, it grew well beyond the size of the toolshed, at which point my parents managed to whack it down to about half its size, and for the remainder of its life, it stayed fairly small.

Our black berry bush was nothing compared the the giant monstrosity being grown by our next door neighbours. I guess the fact that the original owner of the house grew quite old and passed away, leaving the house to her disabled son, then the house sat without an tenant for quite sometime before being occupied by a family with two kids and entirely too many vehicles in various states of repair. No one had the time or ability to deal with it and It really never was very well tended to, so it grew to an enormous size before too long.

I loved this berry bush. It was a mixture of black berry bushes, raspberry bushes and a small amount of marionberry bushes. There was another unidentifiable berry growing in there, but we never picked it for fear of it being poisonous, and seeing as how we had so many other berries to pick, it wasn’t that big of a deal, even though looking back I think it was a low lying bush berry like a huckleberry.

Anyways, this bush, being of such size that when it was later removed, it was found to have over 10 vehicles within its masses, was so full of berries that the people that owned the house didn’t mind me and a few friends going and picking a few buckets full of berries every once in a while.  I think they figured I was 15 and bored, and picking berries was much better than doing something much more destructive.

So one particular day I enlisted the help of two of my best friends, and we decided we would tackle the bush.

We suited up, thick rubber kitchen gloves for all three of us, provided by my mom who was so afraid we’d prick our fingers and catch some sort of berry bourne disease, that she insisted we remove the gloves every 15 minutes and check our fingers for cuts before resuming our berry picking. Also, we went wearing the most reasonable of outfits, shorts, tanktops and flip flops. Taking a moment to check ourselves out in the mirror, we remarked about how stylish we looked, and how it made much more sense to have our arms bare, so as not to catch any loose material in the thorns, than to worry about cutting our arms on the bushes. We weren’t worried about our legs, because we didn’t plan on stepping into the bushes, just picking from the outside. Also, being a farm girl, wearing flip flops was a bit of a stretch, as most times I would never wear shoes at all, prefering the feel of the grass and dirt on my feet and between my toes.

Grabbing a five gallon bucket each and a smaller bucket, a large bowl and a plastic garbage sack for each of our remaining hands to hold, we set off to the giant berry bush hoping to find it full of fruit and ready for picking.

It was quite a sight, the three of us dressed in summer outfits contrasted by the giant plastic kitchen gloves. Picking berries proved nearly impossible with those darned things on, they were quickly removed and placed in the garbage sack.

We spent nearly the whole evening out there, picking berries, laughing, telling jokes, singing songs (I have no idea why, but my friends and I couldn’t go anywhere without singing) and just enjoying each other’s company, gently plucking the soft fruits from the vine, inspecting them and letting them fall into the bucket below.

I don’t know which one of us said it first, but as our  buckets each reached about half full, someone mentioned that it might not be a good idea to fill the buckets all the way, as the weight of the berries on top would smash the berries on the bottom. We agreed we would fill the bowl and the smaller bucket and then return home, and if we still felt up to it and there was enough light left, we would come back and pick more berries.

Soon after that, we finished filling the bowl, and we decided to head back home. It was only about a 5 minute walk through the field, the only thing slowing us down was the fear that we might step into a hole, or a spider might jump up out of the hay below. We crossed from the field into my parents back yard and we had to stop because one of my friends had a rock stuck under their foot in their flip flop. My parents had a little park bench and some big rocks in their yard, so we all sat down, and as my other friend and I waited for our remaining friend to remove the rock, we started eating some of the berries.

Really, we couldn’t be blamed for what happened next. It was human nature… at least, 15 year old girl human nature. All it took was one berry flying in the air to land on someone’s shirt to spark an all out berry assault that would leave us red, sticky and stained, but still very tasty.

Needless to say, it only took about 20 minutes for the three of us to go from three half filled 5 gallon buckets of berries, one small bucket and a very large bowl full of berries, to no berries and three very sticky teenagers. We didn’t even get in the house before my mom found out, I think she heard our laughing and screaming from the kitchen, and when we turned towards the house she was standing on the porch holding some old dish rags and pointing the the garden hose. She didn’t look angry, but you could see the questioning look on her face.

Why would we spend such an incredibly long time picking berries just to waste them all in a bright red food fight?

As we cleaned up in the freezing cold water straight from our ground well, we didn’t really talk much. I think we all were kind of wondering what we just did, and why. After we cleaned the majority of the sticky mess off our ourselves we took turns getting approved for entrance into the house, then sprinting to the bathroom and showering off before coming back outside and sitting on the grass, enjoying the crisp, cool and windy summer evening in my parents yard while sizing up our scrapes, pricked fingers and otherwise injured selves.

We ended the evening roasting marshmallows in the burn pit and then camping out in a small pup tent that we were barely strong enough to get the stakes into the ground to secure it with. Ghost stories and large quantities of sugary snacks kept us from sleeping and ultimately led to us abandoning our outdoor post and retreating to the comfort of my parents living room.

In the morning we woke up to the sound of my mom chasing my little sisters around the house, and my dad making a giant waffle breakfast, just like he did every time I had friends over. We waited until my parents ate before finishing off every prepared breakfast food in the kitchen, and my dad laughed as he said “I dunno.. My breakfast might have been a little better with some fresh raspberries.” and winked. It seemed like for a moment my family was one of those television families, My dad the wise one who always made a wry joke of my bumbling mistakes, my mom at her wits end with my little sisters as the cuteness factor. My older sister making a cameo appearance from time to time because she’s so busy with her friends and being old enough to drive, and my friends were always around, making me appear much more cool than I am, but really, they were just there for the food (which is SO true, by the way).  It all made sense.

I remember that summer day as one of my best teenage memories. I don’t think I really truly knew what I had back then, and I never really thought that I’d look back on my childhood and wish that I hadn’t wasted so much of it being worried about so much. We were free that day. Free of responsiblity, worry. We didn’t think “Oh no, what if someone sees me looking like this.” or “ew gross, berries and bugs!” We just enjoyed ourselves living in the moment, as teenagers.

I wish I had spent more summer days that way. There were so many more berries to pick, enough for a whole summer full of berry fights.

I’ve yet to go berry picking this summer, and I know the window for berry season is drawing to a close, but my mom was able to take my sisters berry picking this weekend, and they brought me a few containers of fresh raspberries to eat and bake with.

Berries don’t seem to last very long in my house, so I froze one of the containers of berries before it had a chance to over ripen or mold. The second container I reserved for baking… but really, only about half of them made their way into this recipe, the rest…

Well.. lets just say they were very tasty.

Today I made chocolate raspberry cupcakes with raspberry cream cheese filling, chocolate icing and a little raspberry cream cheese on top.

…Uh oh.. the robots found them…

I think adding the raspberry puree really made these cakes super soft. They had such a delicate texture, and they were so moist.

Messiest bite ever.

So enjoy your summer. Enjoy the simplicity that is this change in weather, which is only temporary. Enjoy your youth if you have it, and the life you’ve lived, if you don’t.

And for goodness sakes, eat some cupcakes.

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup pureed raspberries
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers and Set aside.
In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the chocolate, mixing until well incorporated. Add the pureed raspberries mixing well. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated, but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Chocolate glaze

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a double boiler over hot, but not boiling water, combine chocolate chips, butter and corn syrup. Stir until chips are melted and mixture is smooth, then add vanilla. Allow mixture to cool slightly before spooning a bit over the top of the cooled cupcakes.

Raspberry cream cheese filling and topping

1 1/2 cups thawed frozen or fresh raspberries
1 cup cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
pinch of cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
milk as needed

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl often to eliminate clumps. At a low speed, mix in the raspberries, brown sugar, vanilla extract and cinnamon. Blend well. Mix in the powdered sugar. When all is well blended, decide how thick you want your filling to be. If you would like it thinner, add a bit of milk, if you would like it thicker, add more powdered sugar. I left mine as is, sort of in the middle.

To fill the cupcakes, use a sharp knife to cut a circle in the center of the cupcake, lift off the top and pick out a bit of the cake inside. Using a ziplock bag with a hole cut in one end, pipe the filling into the center of the cupcake, replace the top and spoon a bit of the chocolate glaze over top. Before serving, pipe a little more of the cream cheese mixture on top of the cupcake.

Keep the cupcakes and the filling refrigerated.

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 3:06 am and is filed under August 2007, The Cupcakes!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.