About 25 years ago, I subscribed to Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks. A little book-shaped magazine would appear every few weeks in the mail. It was like Christmas came once a month! I loved the little magazines & still have them all. One of recipes that totally sticks out from that time was an angel food cake. This was no ordinary angel food cake. It had a tunnel dug out of the center & the tunnel was filled with cherry pie filling & the “lid” was put back on, the cake was frosted & no one was the wiser, until it came time to cut it. And then POW! Gorgeous fruit spilled out onto the plate from the center of the cake & the presentation (& flavor!) was just magnificent.

For some reason, I’ve been thinking about that cake a lot lately. It’s been haunting me! So I had to make it again.

I LOVE The Brown Eyed Baker! She’s my Blogging, Baking Hero. I use many of her recipes and today is no different. For this cake, I used her from scratch angel food cake recipe that you can see here. The only thing I did differently from the original recipe was to use orange extract in place of almond extract. I felt orange would compliment the berries better.

This is the finished cake. I made it in my old Princess House bundt cake pan & set it on the handle of a large vodka bottle so that it could cool completely, which took a good 3 hours.

While the cake was cooling, I made the berry sauce. This is 6 large strawberries, 6 oz of raspberries & approximately 4 oz of blackberries. Wash the berries, dice the strawberries & add them all to a saucepan with the juice of 1/2 a lemon, 1/2 a cup of granulated sugar & 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. Cover the pan & cook on med-low.

After about 10-15 minutes, everything will be nicely saucy & juicy. Remove from heat & set it aside to cool down.

Once the berries have cooled down, transfer them to a mesh colander set over a bowl or measuring cup to drain the liquid. I let the berries drain for an hour & got a cup of liquid. The berries will be the cake filling & the sauce will be the glaze.

Once the cake is completely cooled, set it on a cutting board. Turn the cake on it’s side & slice through the middle horizontally, making 2 halves of cake. This is done fairly easily with a long serrated knife & by using a long sawing motion.

Then carefully cut a “tunnel” in the bottom layer of the cake, making sure to not cut through completely. There should be a 1/4″ of cake at the bottom of the tunnel. Here’s where you get to taste the amazing cake because all that just got cut out should not go to waste! And you have got to make sure it’s not poison before you feed it to your family.

Add the berries evenly to the tunnel you just dug out. Try to make sure the berries aren’t sticking up further than the cake, so that the “lid” will go back on evenly. Add the top of the cake back onto the bottom layer. You may have to adjust it so that it sits right.

Return the berry liquid to a small saucepan. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in 2 tablespoons of water. Whisk it into the liquid & turn the heat on low. After just a couple of minutes, the berry sauce will thicken. Remove from heat. Cool for about 5 minutes.

Pour the glaze onto the top of the cake. Let it cool. Slice & enjoy! (BTW – this is so good & super elegant. Might be a great dessert for Easter dinner!)