RECIPE: Nectarine, raspberry and almond cake.

This is a real beauty of a cake - delicious for afternoon tea, but equally perfect as a pudding. I'm thinking warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Ooh yeah. As far as I'm concerned, any cake with ground almonds in is a winner as it's always so moist, and this is a great way of making the most of the amazing summer fruits at this time of year. I've always found BBC Good Food's recipes to be very reliable, so this is one of their's that I've slightly changed - one of the ways in which I've done that is by turning a tray bake into a round cake (I think they're prettier and thus better for a party), so that's why the quantities are slightly odd. Just go with it. Trust me. It fits a 23cm diameter round cake tin. I usually like to try new recipes all the time, but this cake really is that good that I (and everyone else) always want to eat it again and again. Good Food's version has 40 five star ratings!

Ingredients


167g unsalted butter
200g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
133g self-raising flour
33g ground almonds
1/4 tsp salt
2 nectarines, stoned, halved, then each half cut into 3
100g raspberries
handful flaked almonds
1 tbsp icing sugar, to finish

Method

1. Butter and line a 23cm diameter round cake tin and heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

2. Gently melt the butter in a large saucepan and cool for five mins. Meanwhile, measure out the sugar, vanilla and eggs, then add to the butter and beat until smooth with a wooden spoon.

The sugar, vanilla and eggs mixed with the butter.

3. Stir in the flour, ground almonds and salt.

4. Tip the mix into the tin, then lay the peach slices and raspberries on top in whatever pattern you like, but it's probably best to do so evenly - that way each piece of cake will have a bite of fruit. Scatter the almonds over.

pre-baking

5. Bake for about 50 minutes - one hour, covering with foil after 30 mins (or sooner if it seems to be going very brown on top.) Test with a skewer: the middle should have just a tiny hint of squidginess, which will firm up once the cake cools.

6. Cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then lift out onto a cooling rack. Once cold, dust with icing sugar, and display proudly to your guests. Or just smile fondly to yourself before devouring. You know, whichever.