retro recipe revamp: cinnamon scroll cake with fresh raspberry frosting

I'm so excited about this little project; I reckon I spent like, 47% of my time last week thinking about what to make next. That's a lot of time, when you're meant to be finishing a PhD. Unfortunately, all of the rest of the time I was thinking about my thesis; this didn't leave much room for anything else. Oh well. Sorry Martha Stewart.

I'll tell you what though, it was worth it. This week's retro recipe comes from one of my little McAlpin's Test Kitchen Recipe booklets, of which I have a couple. They're not dated, but the Mixmaster in the test kitchen picture is the same 1950s model that I have at home and judging from the ovens and stoves, I'd say we're looking at the mid 1950s. You want to see what this test kitchen looks like - trust me.

Dita Von Teese, eat your heart out! Oh, I guess she already did. I just love the set up here: not only can the audience see how to use McAlpin's flour to make all kinds of goodies, but they can marvel at the pristine white cooking-lab coats the demonstrators wear. This little booklet cost 1 florin (or 2 shillings) at the time, which is equivalent to around $2.90 today, according to the Reserve Bank's pre-decimal inflation calculator (!). I guess that makes these little treasures the equivalent of a modern budget cooking publication like Woolworth's goodtaste magazine ($3.95), only it's filled with around 175 recipes for baked goods. Which, of course, made it difficult to decide what to make. I was tempted (?) by the Wholemeal Savoury Tongue Squares, but decided in the end to go with what had caught my eye early on, the Cinnamon Scroll Cake with Pink Frosting. So on Saturday morning, I got to work.

This is basically a coffee cake, flavoured with cinnamon and coffee essence, with a gorgeous pink swirl running right through. The Test Kitchen tops this marvel off with a frosting flavoured with raspberry essence that is tinted pink. I realised this week - with ensuing shame - that I had never made a marble cake before, or indeed anything 'swirled' or 'marbled', so it was this that I was most excited about. I decided to go with the cake recipe mostly as it was originally written; I only swapped the coffee essence for some espresso powder and added a little more milk, because the batter seemed a little thick. The resulting was light and moist, with just a pretty whisper of cinnamon and coffee flavours. And yes, swirling pink batter through coffee-coloured batter with a knife was as exciting as I'd hoped it would be.

The real excitement in the end though, was the frosting. I kept an eye out this week for raspberry essence but the closest I came was Queen's Strawberry Essence. This is just didn't seem right. And actually, I realised, I wanted a bright and punchy raspberry flavour to liven up a relatively plain coffee cake. So, I used fresh raspberries in my frosting. And Quincy nodded in her small puffy way, the sun came out and the birds began to sing.

Another excellent retro recipe vamp experiment. I'd do this for a living, I reckon.

Lexi.x

Cinnamon Scroll Cake with Fresh Raspberry Frosting
Cake recipe adapted from McAlpin's Test Kitchen Recipes (circa 1955) 
Frosting recipe adapted from makinglifedelicious.com

For cake:
230g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
200g caster sugar
115g butter, softened
2 eggs
7 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
a few drops of rose (or cochineal) food colouring
1 quantity of Fresh Raspberry Frosting (recipe below)

1. Heat oven to 180C. Prepare a 7 inch square cake tin by greasing and lining bottom with baking paper.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a medium bowl.

3. Add the espresso powder to 1 tbsp of the milk, mix to dissolve and set aside.

3. In the large bowl of your stand mixer, or a larger bowl, beat the butter until soft and creamy. Sift in the   dry ingredients, add 4 tbsp of milk, and mix at medium speed until well combined. Don't worry if your batter looks a little dry and lumpy at this point.

4. Add the eggs and 2 remaining tbsp of milk and mix to make a smooth batter.

5. Pour or spoon 1/4 of the batter into a medium bowl. To this smaller quantity, add a few drop of food colouring. Beat to incorporate. Pretty!

6. To the remaining mixture, add the dissolved espresso mixture and the cinnamon. Beat to combine.

7. Pour or spoon the cinnamon batter into your prepared cake tin. Add the pink batter to the top of this and with a butter knife, swirl the pink mixture through until it looks pleasantly marbled.

8. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes (or until a cake tester poked into the middle comes out clean; mine took 45.)

9. Sit on a cake rack to cool for 10 minutes, then carefully remove cake from tin. Allow to cool completely on rack before frosting.

For frosting:

3/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

55g butter

1/4 - 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted

a little milk to loosen, if needed

1. Heat raspberries in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir with a wooden spoon to break up. When the berries are no longer whole and look more like a coulis or sauce, strain to remove the seeds. Return the seedless liquid to the saucepan and look a little longer until reduced by nearly half. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

2. In the small bowl of a stand mixer or using a hand-held mixer, beat butter a little. Add 1 cup of icing sugar, 1/2 tsp lemon juice and raspberry puree. Beat until well combined, then add remaining icing sugar. If the mixture seems too stiff, add the extra lemon juice. Check again and if you still want it softer, add milk a teaspoon at a time until you reach desired consistency.

3. Put on your cooking-lab coat, and spread artfully onto your cake.

10 wonderful things to do in Autumn (while eating earl grey tea and pear cake)

Isn't Autumn wonderful? I don't think I've felt so excited about it since I was a teenager who thought she hated hot weather (in fact, she loved it). The afternoons are warm and the evenings are cool, things begin to turn different shades of red and gold all around you and the light is just perfect. I've been spending early-morning train trips to work fantasising about perfect ways to spend this precious time - so here are 10 of my ideas, with a new recipe too, naturellement. I hope you enjoy, and please do share the Autumn love and leave your own ideas.


1. Bake an earl grey tea and pear cake. I'm eating a slice of this right now as I type, alongside a cup of tea and it's delicious. The recipe is based on one I found in this month's issue of Donna Hay magazine for an earl grey tea cake. Hers had a couple of grated apples stirred into the mixture which I've swapped out for diced pear. Diced, the fruit is a bit more of an event in the cake, in that it turns into little pockets of sweet ripe cooked pear in a moist base dark and rich with brown sugar, pureed dates and strong earl grey tea. It reminds you a little of a really good banana cake in terms of texture and appearance, but is altogether more appropriate for Autumn afternoon teas and post-dinner, DVD break snacking. Recipe follows.

Couldn't get enough of Tourism Victoria's 'Visit Make Believe' Dandenong Ranges campaign, in which the above picture appears. Ophelia will float by any second...

2. Day-tripping. The mornings are cool but the afternoons are glorious, so heading out early on a day trip to the countryside is perfect in Autumn. If you're in Melbourne, the Yarra Valley and the Dandenong Ranges are stunning at this time of year and are under an hours drive from Melbourne. Visit gorgeous gardens, drink wine, go antiquing, eat lavender scones. For a (more indulgent) weekend away at this time of year, visit Bright, where there's an Autumn festival each year. There's lovely B&Bs, but also gorgeous camping grounds. Eat chestnuts, go on lazy drives to nearby farms and towns, sit by the fire in the evenings, eat full cooked breakfasts, or:



3. Go apple-picking. If you live in the city, you can go a long time without seeing the actual source of the things that you eat. Going to an orchard in apple season can remedy this, reminding you that food actually does grow on trees. If you do take a trip to Bright, visit nearby Wandiligong, a very small town (around 250 people) full of orchards. You can pick apples there, but also pears and nuts. For closer to Melbourne and Australia-wide, see this list. Take a picnic and some Robert Frost.



4. Buy some beautiful tea. Treat yourself to a new blend of loose-leaf tea and get your teapot fired up! I know everyone goes nuts over T2, but I love the Earl Grey loose-leaf at Tea Party, as it has plenty of bergamot and smells absolutely gorgeous. They also do French Earl Grey (with rose petals), Lady Grey (with lemon and pretty blue cornflowers) and a whole host of other gorgeous herbal, black, white and green tea blends. You can visit them at the Victoria Market, or you can order online. Yay for internets!

5. Watch Douglas Sirk films. Spend Sunday afternoons getting lost in and inspired by Douglas Sirk's technicolor world. You can - and should! - read more about the man here.

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Imitation of Life (1959)

Written on the Wind (1956)

6. Knit a scarf. Haberdashery stores in town - Clegs, Lincraft, etc - have their range of wools in now. Maybe you should knit a scarf? Relaxing Autumn afternoons are perfect for tea-drinking and knitting, and by Winter you'll have a cosy scarf to wrap around your neck. If you need more convincing, just look at these showgirls passing the time: they're loving it! Scarves are very easy, so they're the perfect project if you're new to knitting, and they don't require much yarn, so aren't expensive to make. Patons yarns have a good learn-to-knit guide you can purchase in stores, or get it online for free here.






7. Make some pickle. Make like it's WWII (not really) and preserve some bounty for gifts and the months ahead. I made a rhubarb chutney this week with rhubarb and apples from the garden, but you don't need a glut of produce or even a whole heap of time to whip up a few jars of pickles. Try this cauliflower pickle; you only need one head of cauliflower, a few onions, vinegar and spices and a few old jars. Buy some cheap gingham fabric and tie squares over the top with string. Presto! Homemade hostess gifts with loads of charm.



8. Buy new tights. New tights or stockings are my favourite budget-friendly way to get through the shift in seasons with a little touch of luxury. Student incomes might not allow new bracelet-length dresses or suede boots, but if I'm feeling shabby, a new pair of fancy patterned tights will freshen a repetitive outfit and put a little spring back in my step. I love browsing for hosiery at department stores, but often you can't beat prices online. My current favourite online stores for hosiery are Modcloth, MyTights and Fantasy Lingerie. Yes, that's a dirty dirty lingerie store, but they've got some great stockings if you can look past the crotchless body-stockings. And plastic pants, heh. P.S. Don't type 'stockings' into google image search with children around. P.P.S. No, I don't own Louis Vuitton tights. But yes, I'd like to.

9. Make hot mulled cider. Because the evenings can get cold in Autumn, you should make some mulled cider. Yep, that's cider warmed with spices (and a little brandy, if you're feeling jolly). It's so lovely to greet visitors coming in from the cold with. Think of it like a cold-weather sangria. I've been making this recipe for Mulled Cider with Calvados from epicurious and it's great. But once you've got the formula down, there's tonnes of room to play.

10. Humble, humble porridge. I couldn't be happier about porridge, or oatmeal, being back on the menu for chilly mornings. To take a simple serve of porridge and turn it into a bowl of Autumn, top with cinnamon, some bits of walnut or good maple syrup. Try grating an apple into the mixture before cooking, adding some frozen blueberries, or swapping your regular rolled or instant oats for multigrain or a barley and oat combination. I find these keep me full for longer and provide more sustained energy to get me through until lunchtime and to run from bears, etc.

earl grey tea and pear cake

Adapted from donna hay magazine, Apr/May 2011

Makes 1 loaf

1 cup (or 140g) chopped fresh dates

1 tsp baking soda (bicarb)

3/4 cup (or 180ml) strong earl grey tea

3 small - medium pears, peeled, cored and diced

1 1/4 cup (or 185g) self-raising flour

3/4 cup (or 135g) brown sugar

150g unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 170°C (335°F). Grease and line loaf tin with baking paper.

2. Put the dates and baking soda in a bowl and pour over hot tea. Set aside for 10 minutes. Using a stick blender or mini food processor, blend until smooth. Set aside.

3. Place flour and sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine and aerate. Add chopped pear and stir gently to combine. Add melted butter, vanilla, eggs and date mixture. Mix well.

4. Pour into lined loaf tin and bake for 50 - 55 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in tin 10 minutes, then turn out to cool completely.

lemon and olive oil cake

I know I'm not the only one who loves a plain-ish, not-too-sweet everyday cake. Fancy six layer super-cakes are great and all, but sometimes there's nothing more lovely than a Sunday afternoon cup of tea and an ever so slightly austere yet pretty, slice of home-baked cake. I'd been wanting to try this lemon and olive oil cake for a little while since spotting it on epicurious.com a couple of months ago, so today after a morning of gardening (hard work!), I thought a tea-time treat was in order.


I know it doesn't look like much, but hopefully those of you that understand the charm of the everyday cake will understand just how lovely this one is. It's a little sweeter than some of the other everyday cakes I usually make, but the tanginess of the lemon and the fruitiness of the extra virgin olive oil offset this sweetness nicely, resulting in a wonderfully soft and balanced cake that is perfectly delicious on it's own or warm with cream and/or fruit as a dessert. It contains flour, but no raising agent, relying instead on the fluffy lightness of whipped egg whites which are folded into the batter at the last moment.

The great thing about cakes made with olive oil (besides the delicious taste) is that they seem to stay fresh for a few days longer than those made with butter - and this is a big plus in a household of two where one "person" has four legs and doesn't eat cake. Slices of this cake will make it into the office and to the table for Monday night catch-up with friends over tea. There'll be a slice or two in my lunchbox this week and maybe a piece, rewarmed and served with lemon butter and/or ice-cream if I have a bad day (or a really good one!). If you're not into the idea of olive oil in desserts, try dialing back the olive flavour by using a light olive oil in place of the extra virgin. You'll get all the benefits of the oil with a less pronounced olive flavour.

lemon and olive oil cake
from epicurious.com

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (or light for a more mellow flavour), plus additional for greasing pan
1 large lemon
1 cup cake or "00" flour
5 large eggs, separated, reserving 1 white for another use (5 yolks, 4 whites)
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350° F). Grease a springform pan with some olive oil and line the bottom with a round piece of baking paper. Oil paper also.

2. Finely grate 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon zest and whisk into your flour. Now halve your lemon and squeeze out 1 1/2 tablespoons juice; put aside.

3. With an electric mixer, beat together yolks (5) and 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl until thick and pale (about 3 minutes). Reduce speed to medium and add olive oil (3/4 cup) and reserved lemon juice, beating until just combined (original recipe states that mixture may appear separated at this point; mine was fine). Using a wooden spoon, gently stir in flour mixture until just combined.

4. Clean your beaters to beat egg whites (4) with 1/2 teaspoon salt in another large bowl at medium-high speed until foamy, then add 1/4 cup sugar a little at a time, beating, and continue to beat until egg whites just hold soft peaks (about 3 minutes).
Very gently, fold one third of whites into yolk mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whites gently but thoroughly. Your batter will have changed texture now into a foamy, soft mass.

5. Transfer batter to greased pan. Sprinkle top of batter with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar. Bake until puffed and golden and a skewer inserted in center of cake comes out clean (about 45 minutes; mine took 40). Cool cake in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around edge of pan and remove side of pan. Cool cake to room temperature, about 1 1/4 hours. Remove bottom of pan, peel off paper and transfer cake to serving plate.

chocolate and beetroot cake

This month I bought Gourmet Traveller magazine and immediately wanted to make every single thing in it. So far I've managed three dishes: oven-baked Italian pork sausages with polenta, baked beans with pork spareribs and this chocolate and beetroot cake. All three dishes are well worth a mention, but this cake was AMAZING.


Chocolate and beetroot: sounds weird, right? But trust me, you won't look back. This is a flourless chocolate cake that is lifted to an impossible level of lightness when you separate and whisk the eggs. You fold in whipped cream, a little almond meal, melted chocolate and the magic that is a medium-sized fresh beetroot, finely grated. What you end up with is a very light and moist dark, dark, mossy cake that has the chocolate intensity of a brownie with a wonderfully earthy dimension, courtesy of the beetroot. It is elegant, decadent and totally surprising. And you'll (most probably) love it.

Chocolate and beetroot cake
From Gourmet Traveller 2010

I actually made this in a half quantity in a small square cake tin - it worked wonderfully, but I've included the full recipe as printed. This is a good trick if you can't get through an entire cake and want to avoid freezing. My other trick is to make the full recipe in two smaller tins and use one as a gift. Friends for life.

400g dark chocolate (somewhere around 60% cocoa)
6 eggs, separated
150g caster sugar
200g beetroot, very finely grated
100ml pouring cream, whisked to soft peaks
75g almond meal
butter, to grease tin
cocoa (preferably Dutch-process) to dust

1. Heat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper. Your mixture will be quite runny, so make sure it is watertight!

2. Melt chocolate in a metal (or other heatproof) bowl over a pan of simmering water until smooth. Careful not burn!

3. Whisk egg yolks and 2/3 of sugar with an electric mixer until pale yellow and creamy. Add the melted chocolate and grated beetroot. Stir to combine.

4. Whisk eggwhites to soft peaks, then add remaining sugar and whisk until glossy and smooth. Fold whipped cream then eggwhite then almonds into chocolate mixture carefully.

5. Put cake tin into a larger roasting pan and pour in boiling water to come halfway up the side of the cake tin. Carefully slide the whole shebang into the oven and bake for 45 minutes on 180C, then reduce the heat to 170C and bake for another 30 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly pressed. Turn off oven and leave the cake there for 20 minutes, then take out and cool in the pan for another 15 minutes before turning out. Take care when turning, as cake is super-moist and quite delicate. Dust with cocoa powder and serve alone, or with cream or ice-cream.

Cure for Sunday afternoon Autumn melancholy: Pear and Hazelnut Torta

Autumn Sunday mornings in Melbourne often begin a bit like the opening credits of Douglas Sirk’s 1955 film, All That Heaven Allows, I think. All red and yellow leaves and a gentle wind that stirs them like a warning for what lies ahead. Soft light makes everything glow like Technicolour and the whole scene is so lovely, that if you look for too long your chest begins to feel heavy with the weight of doomed romance or winter’s coming. What you need then, is something to eat that celebrates Autumn. Something wholesome and golden that reminds you how good the present moment can be.


Something with pears, perhaps? This little cure for Autumn melancholy is made from a recipe in this month’s delicious. magazine that I bookmarked right away. And it is everything I wanted it to be on that sort of a Sunday afternoon; it is a toothsome and nutty tart with hits of fragrant roasted pear scattered about on top. Something magic happens to it in the oven and the batter separates into a spongy, cake-like layer on the bottom and a chewy frangipane-like top layer. It comes out looking as if you’ve done something fancy – or time consuming, at the very least. It is shallow and not too sweet and would be delicious with a dollop of mascarpone, although I loved it warm on it’s own with coffee. A piece of this and a bit of Nina Simone on the stereo will sweeten your Autumn Sunday afternoon.



Pear and hazelnut torta
Serves 6

Note: to toast and remove skins from hazelnuts, place on an oven tray and roast for around 10 minutes or until they smell good and toasty. Be careful though – they burn real quick! While hot, put into a clean tea towel and rub vigorously until skins have been removed.

100g toasted hazelnuts with skins removed
½ cup (110g) caster sugar, plus 2 tsp extra to top
1/3 cup (50g) plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
¼ cup (60ml) milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
80g unsalted butter, melted & cooled
20g extra butter, chilled and chopped
2 ripe but firm pears
icing sugar, to dust

Preheat oven to 170°C (or 190° in my slow old thing). Grease a 26sm round tart pan or quiche dish.

Place hazelnuts, caster sugar and 1 tablespoon of flour in food processor and whiz until the nuts are ground. Stop before they become too fine and form a paste. Tip this mixture into a large bowl. Sift in remaining flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk until thoroughly combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk eggs until slightly frothy, then add milk, vanilla and cooled butter, whisking to combine. Pour this into the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until well combined. The mixture might be runnier than what you’d expect of a regular cake batter. Scrape this into your prepared pan.

Peel, quarter and core pears then cut each quarter into 3 or 4 thin slices. If you’re neat and fussy, fan these by pressing gently on the quarter and transfer with a palette knife to the top of the batter. If you’re like me (lazy), do the best you can using only your fingers until it looks a bit like the picture. Repeat for both pears. Sprinkle top of the torta with extra caster sugar, concentrating on the pear fans and finally, dot fruit with chilled chopped butter.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes, or until tart is golden and has puffed slightly (mine took 5 minutes longer even). Transfer to a wire rack and sift over a good layer of icing sugar. Allow to cool to warm then add another finer layer of icing sugar. Serve warm with cream or marscapone or at room temperature with coffee.

Olive Oil, Mandarin and Dessert Wine Syrup Cake

This is a cake for Luella.


A few months ago now she wrote and asked for the recipe for this delicious cake we'd both made years ago - but I didn't know where I'd found it in the first place and I'd looked for the last couple of years through (literally) hundreds of old magazines and through my piles of torn-out pages - like a crazy woman looking for a cat who died years ago. And then, not so long ago, I found it. I'm so glad, because this cake is light and moist with a hint of the beautiful olive oil shining through - and, being a syrup cake, it keeps remarkably well for days.

Luella's email sat at the top of what had become a small pile of requests for recipes: ideas from my growing collection of books and clippings, recipes for things we'd all made once a week for a while years ago but since forgotten, and for things my family made that weren't written down anywhere. This was the last request I received before I decided to start this blog. So thanks Lulu for the inspiration: have some cake.x

Olive Oil, Mandarin and Dessert Wine Syrup Cake
From Gourmet Traveller 2004

½ cup olive oil
1 cup caster sugar
pinch of salt
finely grated rind of 2 mandarins
3 eggs
200g self-raising flour
100g ground almonds
½ tsp bicarbonate soda
250g thick Greek yoghurt
about 6 Greek dried figs, halved widthway and stem removed

For syrup:
200ml dessert wine (like Brown Brothers Orange Muscat & Flora)
150g caster sugar

Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper.

In a large bowl, beat sugar, olive oil and salt with an electric mixer until well combined. Add mandarin rind. Add eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated and a little lighter.

Sift flour, almond meal and soda into a bowl. Add this to the oil, along with the yoghurt and fold to combine.

Transfer gently to tin, level top and bake 45 – 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. If the top looks like it may be getting too dark, cover with a circle of baking paper halfway through cooking.

For syrup, add wine and sugar to a small saucepan and stir over medium heat, until sugar dissolves. Bring to boil and simmer rapidly for 5 minutes.

Remove cake from oven and prick all over with a skewer or small knife. Pour half of hot syrup onto hot cake and allow to cool in tin. Put halved figs into remaining syrup and leave to cool.

Turn cake out and spoon remaining syrup over cake, arranging figs on top. Serve with thick cream.

Peach and Cherry Cake

Last week at the market I became so excited by the arrival of summer fruit that I bought too much to carry. Does that ever happen to you? I couldn't help it. There were peaches, apricots, nectarines, watermelon (with flavour) and most excellently, cherries. Because Christmas happens in the summertime for us down here, the plump red fruit have taken on a festive significance. They’re piled high in Christmas fruit displays, they feature heavily in recipes and the glossiest specimens are poured straight from the farms into our lounge rooms through holiday season supermarket advertisements on the television. It’s almost impossible not to buy bag after bag. But for me they mean so much more than this.

Cherries remind me of sitting on the whitewashed steps of my grandmother’s house, shaded from the hot summer sun by the lemon tree. We’d come back from a swim and she’d be in her bedroom for siesta, but there’d always be a big plate of freshly cut fruit chilling in the fridge for us – giant slices of red pink watermelon with shiny black pips and icy cold peaches with heavy perfume and always, scattered about on top, were a couple of large handfuls of cherries. When my grandmother did it, the cherries always fell perfectly onto the plate, into the crevices made by the other fruit as if she’d placed them there one by one. And so we’d sit on the back steps, with crickets buzzing and the syrupy smell of sunburnt fig trees thick in the air, drinking tall glasses of water, eating cherries. I buy lots of them now, because every so often, a really good one will take me back there.


But I bought so many this week that I decided to make this cake. And I’m glad I did, because it really does showcase how delicious cherries are – and peaches. This cake is wonderful because you can change the fruit for whatever you have on hand and it is always beautiful, as long as you stick roughly to amounts. My mother and I make this often – sometimes she’ll spoon the pulp of a passionfruit over the top before baking and sometimes I’ll throw in some apple and mix cinnamon into the sugar topping. This summer version with peaches and cherries is moist and light, studded with big pieces of sweet baked fruit. It is perfect with a cup of tea in the morning, or even as a dessert if served slightly warm with a dollop of thick, thick cream. The recipe below is for one big cake, but sometimes I'll make it as two half-sized cakes, as in the pictures here. One for us and one for a friend (you give them the less wonky one). Happy Birthday Nicole.x

Peach and Cherry Cake
Adapted from Tessa Kiros’ Twelve

900g – 1kg of fruit (here about 700gm peaches and 250gm cherries)
150g sugar plus 2 tbsp to top
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla essence
250g “00” or all-purpose flour
1½ tsp baking powder
150g butter, melted plus a little extra for greasing
125ml (½ cup) milk

Preheat oven to 180˚C (350˚F). Butter and line a 24cm (9½ inch) loose bottom cake tin with baking paper.

Pit cherries and halve. For peaches, halve and remove stone. Cut into quarters if the fruit are large. Big pieces here are nice.

With an electric beater, beat eggs, 150g sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy. Add sifted flour and baking powder, mixing well to form a smooth, thick batter. Whisk in melted butter and milk.

Throw a few pieces of peach into the bottom of the lined tin, then scrape out the batter on top. Tip the rest of the fruit onto the batter. Don’t worry about pushing it under the batter – the oven will do the rest. Sprinkle the 2 tbsp of sugar over the top and pop into the oven. Bake for about an hour or until a skewer comes out clean and the top is golden and delicious. This is a delicate cake when hot, so let cool before removing from tin. Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve, if desired.