A few days ago whilst I was on leave from work I was wondering around my local market and I spotted some gorgeous fresh ripe apricots glinting at me in the sunshine, I only ever buy apricots when they are in peak season and that's right now folks.
Blushed with pink and slightly tender to the touch these were just about perfect, its way to early for any English apricots (I you can find any at all) and these are Spanish but they just cried out to be baked with. Its many many years since I last baked an upside down cake and that was the classic pineapple with glace cherries but this version is different, firstly it uses fresh fruit and secondly it features my new favorite spice "mahlab".
Mahlab is a middle eastern spice which I thought would marry well with the apricots, a perfect addition to the afternoon tea table in my humble opinion.
What you need
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 4 whole ripe apricots
- 1 cup plain flour - gluten free blend works beautifully
- 1/2 cup sugar - granulated
- 1/4 cup fine polenta
- 1/4 cup finely ground cornmeal (not cornflour)
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 3/4 cup Greek yogurt mixed with a little skimmed milk until consistency of double cream
- 2 eggs
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp of mahlab spice
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
What you do
- Pre heat the oven to 180c
- Cut each apricot in half and remove the stone
- In your cake tin, sprinkle the brown sugar evenly on the base of the tin, place the halved apricots face down on the sugar
- Now to make the sponge - in a large bowl combine the flour, granulated sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, mahlab and baking powder
- In a smaller bowl combine the yogurt and milk, eggs, melted butter, oil and vanilla
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold until blended. Do not over mix
- Pour the mixture over the apricots and spread out evenly
- Bake in the oven for 30 - 35 minutes or so until golden, well risen and testing cooked when you insert a cocktail stick
- Cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes and then run a pallet knife round the tin, place a plate or serving on top of your tin and invert to remove from tin.
- Ta dah ! upside down cake, the cake can be served warm, cool or cold.
- If you like serve with cream, yogurt or creme fraiche
We are linking up to Simple and in Season this month hosted by Ren Behan, as we are using lovely seasonal Apricots.
