As most of you know by now, I'm not one for pretentious, fussy cakes. A buttermilk base, kiss of lemon and just enough salt to keep things sophisticated make this unpretentious beauty my go-to seasonal cake recipe. It's the kind of cake you can throw together on the fly using whatever berries or fruit are in season - in this case raspberries. I love the way smashed berries bleed into the sugar-crusted top of this cake, but there is no reason you couldn't do something like brown-sugared, sauteed apples later in the year. The whole wheat pastry flour I use delivers a pretty cake with delicate crumb. And the buttermilk lends plenty of richness and flavor allowing me to use a fraction of the butter and sugar you'll find in many cakes.

One of the hallmarks of this cake is the big sugar crystals that are strewn across the top just before baking - along with big salt crystals. The cake bakes at a high temperature and the sugar and salt get nice and crusty. The cake itself isn't particularly sweet, so getting a kick of salty sweetness from the crust is key. Now I recognize that not all of you have XXL grain salt and sugar on hand - it's not the end of the world, you can use regular table sugar, though you'll miss out on the craggy texture. I'd skip the finishing salt altogether if you only have a fine-grain table salt - it's still good.

For those of you interested in the particulars, the finishing sugar I used was Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Turbinado Raw Cane Sugar. The finishing salt was the Pangasian Star sea salt my friend (and favorite salt geek) Mark Bitterman gave me. In short he calls it, "an exaggerated version of the classic fleur de sel Brittany sea salt widely used in fine cooking, with lush almost billowy crystals that provide a sensuous crunch." He can go on for hours about its other merits (as well as those of other salts) - I've witnessed it :). The next time around I want to try a version using Big Tree Farms' Coconut Palm Sugar in the cake and pair it with their Balinese Sea Salt on top of the cake - not sure what sort of fruit I'd do yet though...