Welcome to Local is Lovely’s brand new ‘visitor’s book’! And our first entry is a pearler; Borenore baker Sarah Quigley’s caramelised apricot upside-down cake. Sarah is is a fantastic cook, her macaroons are award-winning, her cakes beautiful and pretty much everything she bakes for brother Jeremy’s fab new Byng St Local Store (here in Orange, lucky us) sells out by mid-morning.
Also, she lives about 200 metres from the orchard responsible for growing the apricots that star in this recipe…you can’t get much more local – or lovely – than that!
So here goes. I tried it on the weekend with some Angelina plums from the Orange market and it was beautiful. Sarah says you can substitute the apricots with other stone fruits, berries or even softened apples.
Caramel and apricot upside-down cake
For the fruit:
3 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cream
6-8 apricots, cut into quarters
For the cake:
115g butter
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups (210g) flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (125ml) buttermilk
Line a 24cm cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides. If your cake tin can go on the stovetop melt the butter in that or use a separate saucepan. Add the sugar and cream and cook until sugar is fully dissolved and you have a smooth caramel. If you did this step in a saucepan, pour the caramel into a cake tin then arrange fruit in a pinwheel pattern and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla then the eggs, mixing well between additions. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and then add to the cake batter in two batches, alternating with the buttermilk. Fold together gently and take care not to over-mix.
Spread the batter over the fruit and bake for 45 minutes, or a little more depending on your oven.
Let cool in the tin for about 15 minutes before turning out. Gently slide a knife around the cake’s edges and then, carefully place a plate on top of the cake tin and flip the cake over – be careful that any of the hot caramel doesn’t spill onto your hands (oven mitts would help here).
Serve warm with some ice cream, yogurt or cream.
Lovely!