A Raspberry and Apricot Upside Down Cake

Suddenly, we are well and truly in the throws of summer. We wear short sleeves during the day, sometimes walk home from the restaurant in the light and are eating the first if the produce from our new garden. I have already mentioned how lucky we are to have bought a house with such an established garden. We have enjoyed the last of the years rhubarb now but our herbs are still very alive despite all the picking we do. It is not uncommon for one of us to take M out into the garden and come back with a few roses from one of the 18 bushes we have inherited (yes, you did read that right!) or a bunch of sage, thyme, marjoram to name a few.

Last week we gleefully noticed that our raspberries were deep red and bursting with juice. We ate them greedily straight off the bush.

This week we had been more restrained and managed to put off picking any for a few days so I would have enough to use them in something special. In the end, we had too many anyway, so found ourselves hoovering the remainder up while we waited for our cake to bake.

Raspberry and apricot upside down cake


Ingredients
5 ripe apricots
100g ripe raspberries
225g unwanted butter at room temperature
225g caster sugar
3 large eggs
2tbsp almond extract
300g self raising flour


Method
Preheat the oven to gas Mark 3 1/2/ 170C.
Butter and flour the sides of a 25cm springform tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.
Beat the sugar and butter together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, each with a tbsp of flour and beat well.
Quickly beat in the almond extract, followed by the flour.

Halve and stone the apricots and lay then cut side up into the springform tin. Fill in the gaps between them with the raspberries, making sure the fruit is in a single layer.

Gently spoon the cake mixture out over the fruits.

Bake for 1 - 1 1/4 hours until a skewer comes out clean and the top is golden and springs back to the touch.

Rest the cake in it's tin for 5minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Peel the paper off once cool and serve with yogurt or cream and some chopped pistachios or almonds.