by Helen Cross

by Helen Cross

Regular readers will know I have a fascination with baking with fruit. In fact it's probably more of an obsession. Perhaps it's because I sincerely believe if I pack my baked goodies full of fruit it will balance out the sugar and the butter, which is also being whisked into the cake mixture. Yea okay, who am I kidding! I love fruit but I also love cake in equal measures, confession over. I'm sure you can relate!

Anyway as my fruit bowl is always bursting at the seams with fruit ripe for the picking I'm going to continue to experiment, adding different fruits to new recipes. Peaches are currently my favourite and work particular well in cakes and muffins, combined with raspberries. You can taste the sunshine in each bite and I can't walk past our local fruit shop without buying a bag. They don't however all make it into the fruit bowl without one or two being scoffed on route. The same can be said for plums and nectarines which are also at their very best in the summer months.

The Ingredients...

1. 1 peach cut into chunks

2. 125g of raspberries

3. 160g of plain flour

4. 130g of caster sugar

5. 140g of unsalted butter

6. 1tsp. of baking powder

7. 3 eggs

The Baking bit...

1. Begin my preheating your oven to 180c and grease a 25cm round cake tin.

2. Into the bowl of an electric mixer add the sugar, butter and baking powder and blitz until light and fluffy.

3. Add in each egg one at a time and blitz. Then add in the flour gradually and ensure all the ingredients are folded in together, again using the electric mixer.

4. Add the raspberries and gently blitz but only for a couple of seconds.

5. Transfer the cake mixture into a cake tin and press the peach chunks on top of the cake mixture, ensuring some are peaking up from above.

6. Bake in the oven at 180c for 50 - 60 minutes, until golden and cooked through. Leave to cool before getting stuck in - if you can resist!

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