Summer Nectarine Cake; a light and buttery cake adorned with fresh seasonal nectarines and a sweet honey glaze.
[original recipe posted on 11/08/2020]
Stone fruit season is back, lads.
No other season offers quite the same experience: standing at a 45 degree angle over your kitchen sink; juice pouring down your chin; tongue slurping in a manner that would make the neighbours raise their eyebrows.
Peaches, plums and nectarines are juicy vitamin-packed gold in late summer. The best way to celebrate these gorgeous fruits is, of course, to eat them in their natural state. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t emphasise their beauty in baked goods.
July is not the best time of year to warm your kitchen by running your oven. I like making an exception for cakes like this Summer Nectarine Cake.
Golden exterior. Pastel-yellow interior promising all the buttery softness a good sponge cake should offer. A crown of shimmering nectarine slices, brushed with sweet honey and scattered with toasted almond flakes. Unless you have some kind of violent allergy to nectarines, you truly have no excuse for not having this in the oven already.
One of the most charming features of this cake is that is essentially just a more middle-class-looking version of the classic British pineapple upside-down cake. A tradition with such screaming yellow and red, yet so satisfying in its texture contrasts. The fluffy and the soft, the melting and the juicy.
While stone fruits are gloriously cheap in the supermarkets, this Summer Nectarine Cake really is one to bookmark. In fact, it can also be easily customised to incorporate peaches or plums instead of nectarines.
As always, the equipment required for today’s recipe is minimal. A mixing bowl, a wee cake tin, some greaseproof paper, and a wooden spoon. It’s also nice and easy, even for beginner bakers. As long as you can figure out how to slice open a piece of fruit and arrange them in some manner at the bottom of a cake tin…you’ll be on your way to a delicious treat!
I hope you are all staying safe, especially as things become more worrying and confusing around the world. Thank you, as ever, for stopping by.
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To make this Summer Nectarine Cake, simply follow the recipe below!
Summer Nectarine Cake
Notes
BE A MAVERICK: why not try making this recipe using fresh peaches or plums for an equally delicious cake?
This Summer Nectarine Cake will keep well in an airtight container for up to 4 days. No need to refrigerate unless you live somewhere very warm, or you prefer cold cake!
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp runny honey
- 2-3 fresh nectarines
- 150g (10 tbsp) soft salted butter, plus extra for greasing
- 120g (generous ½ cup) caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 150g (1 ¼ cup) self-raising flour
- Flaked almonds, to decorate (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / 350°F / gas mark 4.
- Grease a 15cm (6 in) cake tin thoroughly, and line its base with some greaseproof or parchment paper.
- Rub a little butter over the greaseproof paper and drizzle over 2 tbsp of the honey. This will help give the nectarine topping a gorgeous shine once baked, and keep them moist in the heat.
- Use a sharp knife to halve the nectarines, remove their pits, and slice them into thin wedges. Don’t worry if they aren’t perfectly ripe, they’ll soften and sweeten nicely when baked!
- Arrange the nectarine slices on the base of your tin in lines or circles. Set aside while you prepare your cake batter.
- Measure your butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat well with a freestanding mixer, electric whisk or wooden spoon until light and fluffy. This should take 1-2 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each.
- Add the flour and stir gently until just smooth and combined.
- Pour the mixture on top of the nectarines, evening out the top with your spoon or spatula.
- Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until risen, golden, and a skewer inserted into the centre can be cleanly removed.
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin for at least 15 minutes before inverting it onto your serving plate and removing the paper.
- Drizzle over your remaining 2 tbsp of honey and scatter over some flaked almonds (if using).
- Enjoy!
I cooked it longer than suggested (about 40 minutes also) on the correct temperature. I checked it with a toothpick but when I took it out to cool the middle was still uncooked and collapsed while resting. It was a strange recipe with the batter being fairly thick like dough rather than a traditional cake batter. Maybe that combined with the 6 inch pan (dough filled to the brim – so it was quite tall rather than other cakes which are baked in shallower pans) caused it to be undercooked.
Hello Laura! It is quite a thick batter, you’re right. Not using liquids such as milk or yoghurt helps keep the cake’s buttery flavour and helps it to hold up against the moisture-filled fruity part once cooked. It’s also a tall cake, as you mentioned, which, when combined with the fact everyone’s oven is different, can vary the baking time. I always try to mention how the finished product should look in colour etc, and mention the skewer test, because it’s a better gauge for understanding how long to bake the cake. I’m sorry to hear it was undercooked. Always best to test multiple times before removing the cake and allowing it to cool, that way you can be sure of a good result!
I followed these instructions and cooked it for 40 mins. I made an error and cooked it on gas mark 6 and the bottom and middle were all sloppy.