Hazelnut and white nectarine cake

Annabel Langbein Media

If you haven't got nectarines, any stonefruit is good - it's delicious made with apricots, peaches or plums - and you could even use well-drained preserved fruit or berries.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups	Hazelnuts (Main)
180 g	Butter, at room temperature
1 cup	Sugar
1 tsp	Vanilla extract
1	Orange, finely grated zest only
3 large	Eggs, at room temperature
1 cup	Self raising flour
½ tsp	Baking powder
8	Nectarines, quartered, stoned and each quarter cut into 4 wedges (Main)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 170C fanbake. Grease the sides of a 23cm springform cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Place hazelnuts on an oven tray and roast for 15 minutes. Tip into a tea towel and rub to remove loose skins. Place hazelnuts in a food processor and whizz to chop coarsely. Remove ¼ cup and put to one side for garnish. Whizz the rest to a fine crumb.
2. Beat together butter, sugar, vanilla extract and orange zest until pale and creamy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Fold in the ground hazelnuts, flour and baking powder until evenly combined, then stir in the nectarines.
3. Spoon into the prepared tin, smooth the top and scatter with the reserved chopped hazelnuts. Bake until the cake is risen and golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (about 1¼ hours).
4. Allow to cool in the tin. If not serving the same day it will keep in the fridge for up to 2 days. Bring back to room temperature to serve.

More picnic cake recipes from Annabel

• One-pot lumberjack cake
• Black velvet cake

Essential Annabel Langbein (Annabel Langbein Media, $65) is a beautiful compendium of Annabel’s best-ever savoury recipes and cooking tips — on sale at Paper Plus, Whitcoulls, The Warehouse and all good bookstores or visitannabel-langbein.com