John Torode's peach upside-down cake recipe
John Torode says: "Whenever I cook this cake I feel as though I could be nine years old again, standing next to Nanna on a sunny Saturday, peaches just picked from the tree at the side of the house and the smell of her perfume and the wood-burning stove."
You can also swap in pears, apricots, cherries or apples with cinnamon which all work just as well as peaches.
Recipes extracted from My Kind of Food by John Torode (Headline) Photography © Yuki Sugiura.
See James Martin and John Torode appearing live at BBC Good Food Show Summer in the City, ExCel London, 20th-22nd May 2016.
Ingredients
- 6 peaches, cut in half and stones removed
- 400 g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, split in half lengthways and seeds scraped out
- 200 g plain flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 200 g butter
- 4 eggs
- 30 ml milk
- 1 icing sugar, for dusting
Details
- Cuisine: British
- Recipe Type: Dessert
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 10 mins
- Cooking Time: 65 mins
- Serves: 10
Step-by-step
- Heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Line the base of a 23cm springform cake tin with baking parchment.
- Prep the peaches: Pop the peaches in a large pan with 200g of the sugar and the vanilla seeds and pod, cover with water – just enough to cover the fruit – and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and cover with a lid and leave them for 20 minutes.
- To make the cake batter, start by sifting the flour and the baking powder together into a bowl three times to aerate.
- Beat the butter and the remaining sugar until white and doubled in size (an electric whisk is good for this).
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating until well mixed, then add the sifted flour and milk and mix well.
- Lift the peaches out of their cooking liquid and arrange the wet peaches, cut-side down, over the base of the cake tin.
- Pour the cake batter over the peaches and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin a little – about 10–15 minutes – then gently turn out onto a plate and carefully peel off the paper.
- Leave to sit for 30 minutes. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm.