The tail end of summer in cake form

Before we hurtle headlong into autumn, hold your horses: here's a buried recipe, all mixed in one pan, refreshed to use up plums or the very last of the peaches.

I devised this cake last year when I was away in Italy for a stretch of writing and a reconfiguring of life. There was one huge, perfect peach and a speckly banana left in the fruit bowl, I’d been asked to take a pudding to someone’s house for dinner with new friends just up the rough-hewn track from the house where we were staying, and this tender, sticky bake was the result.

The original recipe was buried at the end of a long KBJT post about a host of other things so I thought it was worth giving it a newsletter of its own. Easier to save and return to etc. There are still (just about) peaches in greengrocers and on market stalls – the last of this year’s crop, sweeter, if anything, than they were a month ago. Or, even better, make the recipe with ripe plums or a fig or two alongside that speckly banana.

It works as a pudding; it works as a cake; it works any time.

Stone fruit & banana cake

The method here involves little more than melting and mixing in one pan, so there’s hardly any washing up… Simple.

USEFUL TO KNOW Over-ripe bananas freeze brilliantly, but tempting though it is to put them in the freezer with the skin on (neat little package; obvious what it is etc), I recommend peeling and bagging up the fruit first as bananas are weirdly tricky to peel after freezing. No need to mash as freezing breaks down the banana flesh so much that you hardly need to mash them at all after defrosting.

INGREDIENTS

130g unsalted butter

160g light muscovado sugar (I like Billington’s but any soft light brown sugar is fine)

180g self-raising flour

0.5 teasp bicarbonate of soda

A pinch of salt

1 teasp cinnamon (if making the cake with plums, use dried ginger instead of cinnamon)

Splash of vanilla extract

1 large over-ripe, speckly-skinned banana (or two smallish ones), peeled and mashed

1 ripe and juicy large peach (or 2 small ones), stoned and halved (don’t peel); chop one half roughly; slice the other half into half-moon slivers. OR use 4 plums: halve and stone them all, then chop two roughly and slice the other two thinly

2 medium eggs, lightly beaten with a fork

A slug of brandy or amaretto

A little runny honey to glaze (use one that doesn’t have a pronounced flavour or it will outshine the delicate flavour of the cake)

SPECIAL KIT

2lb loaf tin lined with a loaf liner – or lightly greased and lined with non-stick baking paper (NOTE Loaf tins are notorious for differing in depth and length so be prepared for your cake taking a bit longer – or less long – than stated in the recipe)

METHOD

1 First task: put the butter and sugar in a pan to melt. Choose a largeish pan as you’re going to be mixing all the cake ingredients in it later on. Put the pan over the gentlest heat and leave the ingredients to melt for a few minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon every now and then to help the sugar dissolve into the butter and checking the mixture doesn’t boil (a few light bubbles are fine).

2 While the butter-sugar mix is melting, weigh the flour, then stir the bicarb, salt and cinnamon into the flour.

3 At this point turn the oven on to 170°C/150° fan/gas 3. Stir the vanilla extract, mashed banana and chopped peach (or plums) into the melted butter and sugar mixture, making sure everything is well combined. The mixture should be cool after doing that. Next, stir in the beaten eggs and slug of brandy or amaretto.

4 Add the flour mixture to the melted mixture in two goes, stirring well with a wooden spoon after each addition – but don’t beat the mixture.

5 Pour the batter into the lined loaf tin and gently arrange the finely sliced half-peach (or sliced plums) on top, lengthways; don’t press the fruit down.

6 Bake the cake for 50 mins to 1 hr (see NOTE above: test with a skewer at 50 mins – the time the cake takes will depend on the dimensions of your 2lb loaf tin; when the cake is done, the skewer should come out more or less clean, with just a few crumbs sticking to it).

7 Let the cake cool in the tin for 5–10 minutes to firm up a bit, then remove from the tin, lining paper still attached, and put on a wire rack. While still warm, brush the top of the cake with runny honey, paying particular attention to the fruit slices as they’ll look a bit dry after their stint in the oven. Leave to cool before slicing – hard though it will be to resist!

KEEPABILITY A moist cake, this will keep in an airtight tin for two or three days. If the weather’s warm, store in the fridge but bring back to room temperature before eating.

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