A wonderful afternoon tea or dessert cake. You don’t need to make your own custard — a thick store-bought one will do the trick.
Ingredients
| 350 g | Apricots, halved and stoned (Main) |
| 1 ¼ cups | Caster sugar |
| 200 g | Butter, softened |
| 3 | Eggs |
| ½ tsp | Vanilla extract, or vanilla bean paste |
| 1 ¾ cups | Plain flour |
| 2 tsp | Baking powder |
| ¾ cup | Thick vanilla custard |
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Directions
- Heat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 23cm square cake tin.
- Cut each apricot in half again and place in a bowl with ¼ cup of the measured caster sugar and toss to coat. Set aside.
- Cream the butter and remaining caster sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the vanilla extract or paste.
- Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold into the butter mixture with ½ cup custard.
- Spoon half of the cake mixture into the prepared tin and arrange half the apricots with their sugar on top. Dollop over the remaining ¼ cup custard then the remaining cake mixture. Finish with remaining apricots, gently pressing them just a little way into the cake mixture.
- Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. To test, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake; it should come out clean.
- Leave cake to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes before removing. Serve cake warm with extra custard and whipped cream. Or leave to cool and eat on its own.
