I love finding recipes, especially reliable cake recipes that can be stored and adapted to use whatever feature ingredient you have on hand.
I found this cake recipe on a couple of other blogs that has been directly copied and adapted from Smitten Kitchen. All recipes used different fruits or flavours.
The buttermilk creates a soft and fluffy cake base, I use laban (a yoghurt style drink very common in this region) as buttermilk is tricky to come by and if you do find it, strangely expensive. Both are low in fat but rich in tangy flavour, whichever you choose to use.
I love nectarines and must admit they are my preference over peaches. As the summer comes to an end on this side of the world and its just kicking into gear down under, this is a great way to use stone fruits of any kind if they are not at their peak. I tossed my nectarines in a little sugar and marsala to macerate and add a bit more flavour.
It took no time to prepare, an hour maximum cooking – and my recipe uses double quantity. My only gripe is that the fruit was arranged in a lovely decorative fashion but the puffy cake enveloped the fruit. At least I have it photographed and was super delicious and, a couple of days after baking has all but disappeared in my house. We have family visiting, we have a total of 6 adults and 4 children. Its cosy and comforting. Just like this cake.
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bi carb soda
- pinch of salt
- 120g butter, softened
- 280g caster sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for macerating the fruit
- 2 tablespoons marsala
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 2 large eggs
- 300ml buttermilk or laban, well shaken
- 5 good sized nectarines, cut in half and de stoned then sliced into slim but not thin wedges
- 1-2 tablespoons of demerara sugar for scattering
- Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius
- Grease and flour a baking tin. I used a 32cm x 22cm tin
- In a bowl, place the nectarine, marsala and 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and toss to combine. Set aside for 15 minutes or so.
- In another bowl, sift all the dry ingredients together.
- In an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy
- Add the vanilla, lemon zest and 1 egg at a time until creamy
- On a low speed alternate adding the dry ingredients and the buttermilk in 3 batches until combined
- Pour the cake mix into the cake tin and arrange the fruit on top in 1 layer
- Sprinkle the sugar over the top and put into the oven for up to 1 hour, but check at about 45 minutes.
