raspberry and white chocolate loaf cake

This buttery, tender raspberry and white chocolate loaf cake is made with fresh raspberries and a heap of grated, good-quality white chocolate. Pour a silky white chocolate glaze over the top and serve it with your favorite icewine!

This raspberry and white chocolate loaf cake might differ from what you expect. It isn’t a spongy cake with gaping holes where white chocolate chunks use to be. And it isn’t a cake with gummy pockets of raspberries. I started at the bottom with this recipe, reenvisioning what would transform the lovely white chocolate raspberry flavor combo into a winner of a cake.

what makes this the best raspberry and white chocolate loaf cake?

Pound cake base: This cake is tender, rich, and buttery. It’s perfectly structured for soft, wet raspberries. The cake stays intact and you no longer need to worry about crumbling, gooey slices. 

Grated white chocolate: This is more like a white chocolate pound cake than a loaf cake with white chocolate. And it’s a change for the better. I grate a white chocolate bar on the coarse holes of a cheese grater, then fold those tiny shavings into the cake to infuse flavor throughout the crumb. You can easily recognize the white chocolate flavor, but the cake isn’t overwhelmed by it. And the biggest win of all: you won’t have big holes in your cake where the white chocolate chunks used to be, but melted away in the oven. 

Fresh raspberries: Fresh raspberries will break up a bit as you fold them into the cake, which I actually prefer! They spread their seedy, tart flavor around in more parts of the cake.

Long bake time: The cake bakes for 1 ½ hours! It’s a low-temperature bake that lets the center thoroughly cook without drying out. This long bake time also builds caramelized flavor and absorbs all the rich white chocolate.

White chocolate glaze: This glaze is totally optional, but don’t skip it if you want this white chocolate raspberry cake to be next level. It’s a pourable ganache that will giver you gorgeous drips and an even drape across the loaf cake. Beautiful and delicious!

what you need for this raspberry and white chocolate loaf cake:

how to make raspberry and white chocolate cake:

1. Whisk together dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls.
2. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
3. Beat in eggs.
4. Alternate mixing in dry and wet ingredients.
5. Fold in raspberries and grated white chocolate.
6. Pour batter into a loaf pan and bake at 300°F for 1 ½ hours.
7. Cool completely.
8. Heat cream and white chocolate until melted, whisk smooth.
9. Pour white chocolate glaze over raspberry and white chocolate loaf cake.
10. Enjoy!

what kind of white chocolate should I use?

You’ll need a good quality white chocolate bar for this raspberry and white chocolate cake. A bar is important so you can grate it-- white chocolate wafers or chips are too small to easily grate. 

More importantly, though, is there’s a lot of tricky marketing when it comes to buying true white chocolate chips.

Most of the products you find on the shelf are imitation chocolates, labeled as white chips, white morsels, white baking chips, etc. These replace the cocoa butter of true white chocolate with palm kernel oil, at the detriment of flavor. Baking chips are great for melting and cooling (no tempering needed!) but they’re not ideal in our case, where we specifically want the milky, cocoa butter flavor of white chocolate. Finding a bar of real white chocolate is much easier than scouring all of the chip products.

Tip: White chocolate melts super easily in your hand. Keep the bar partially wrapped in foil when you grate it for a cleaner experience.

should I use fresh or frozen raspberries in this white chocolate loaf cake?

You can use fresh or frozen raspberries in this loaf cake, and each has pros and cons. In this case, I prefer fresh raspberries. We toss the raspberries in some powdered sugar to keep them suspended in the batter, so they don’t sink to the bottom of the pan as the cake bakes.

No matter how gentle you are, fresh raspberries will break up a bit when you coat them in powdered sugar and fold them into the batter. This disperses the berries and flavor throughout the cake and it minimizes the gooey berry pockets. The small chunks look beautiful and give you pops of raspberry in every bite. It's not a bad thing!

If you use frozen raspberries, you’ll minimize any color (and flavor) bleeding throughout the cake so that the slices will look cleaner and the berries are much more likely to stay intact. You choose!

what wine pairs with white chocolate raspberry cake?

I love this question. Desserts are tricky to pair wine with-- but the combination of chocolate and fruit makes it an exciting challenge. I always brainstorm food and wine pairings by first thinking about the flavor profile of the food, then thinking through wines that would complement those qualities.

White chocolate is very sweet, but the cocoa butter flavor comes through in this loaf cake much more than the sugar. Raspberries are tart, fresh and fruity, and the cake itself is buttery and tender. 

Look for a fresh dessert wine with fruity flavors, bright acidity, and more sweetness than the cake. Oak will detract from the fresh tart berries, as would notes of bottle aging. Fortified dessert wines could give the wine substance to stand up to the intense white chocolate flavor and rich cake, but a very pure and concentrated dessert wine (like ice wine) will be fabulous.

wines to try!

Riesling Ice wine from the Finger Lakes: pure, intense fruit flavors, beautiful balance of bracing acidity and sweetness

Vidal Icewine from Niagara Peninsula (Ontario): lush dessert wines with sweet peach flavors

Lillet rosé: a bright, sweet, fruit-forward wine-based aperitif

how to store white chocolate raspberry cake

Store finished and glazed cake, covered tightly with plastic wrap, at room temperature. Cake is best enjoyed within 3 days.

Cooled and unglazed cake can be wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen for up to a month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and glaze before serving.

more berry cake recipes to try!

triple berry creme fraiche cake

blueberry almond coconut cake

cherry rye buckle cake with walnut streusel

​​​​​​​swirled cranberry pound cake

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