Although we’ve had a tough summer in Sydney with so much rain, stone fruit is just starting to come into its own. Not the best stone fruit that we’ve ever had, but in late January it’s lovely to have some beautiful peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots. And of course berries are beautiful and plentiful and cheap at the moment!
I’ve been playing around with recipes involving stone fruit and ground almonds and hazelnuts. I’ve made a few upside down cakes which I’ve been very pleased with. This one is an “upright” cake with the fruit placed in the cake batter, some of it just showing through.
As usual, this is a food processor cake so it’s pretty quick and easy! You can serve it plain or drizzle some icing over the top, although it doesn’t really need it. It’s great served with cream, Greek yoghurt or vanilla ice cream.
Ingredients
150g hazelnuts
150g butter
150g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
3 free range eggs
50g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
4 peaches and blood plums cut into quarters or eighths slices
A handful of raspberries (about 10-12)
Drizzle icing
1 tablespoon of lemon juice or rosewater
Icing sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, 160 degrees fan. Grease a 22 cm springform tin and line the base with baking paper.
Put the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan and toast over a medium heat until just brown. Blitz half in a food processor until fine crumbs. Blitz the other half so that they are still quite chunky. Remove from the food processor. There’s no need to wash it – just use again for the cake batter.
Beat butter and sugar in the food processor until pale and well creamed. Add vanilla paste.
Add the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour at the same time with each egg. Mix in the food processor until each egg is incorporated. Mix in the rest of the dry ingredients by pulsing carefully. Some of the nuts will still be quite chunky which will give texture to your cake.
Spread the cake batter in the tin, smoothing the top with a spatula.
Arrange the peach and plum pieces in a circular pattern in the batter, pushing the pieces right into the mixture. Place the whole raspberries in between the stone fruit, just on top of the cake.
Bake for about 35 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. If the cake is browning too quickly, cover the top with foil to prevent burning. When cooked, remove from the oven and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
Carefully remove from the base of the springform tin, removing the baking paper.
You can serve as is, or with a dusting of icing sugar, or a lemon or rosewater drizzle icing.
To make a drizzle icing, mix a tablespoon of lemon juice or a tablespoon of rosewater with enough icing sugar to make a drippable icing. Drizzle over the cake using a fork. I added some pink food colouring for this cake.
Serve on its own or with cream or ice cream.
The Quirk and the Cool 