Apricot Upside Down Cake

Serves makes 1 cake

Time 1 hour 15 minutes plus cooling

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

250g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod

Zest from 2 oranges 

825g tin apricot halves, drained  

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp of baking powder

200g plain flour, sifted

100g ground almonds

200g natural yoghurt

2 sprigs of fresh thyme finely chopped

For the Sugar Syrup

100g sugar

100g water

100g juice from the tin

Method

Preheat the oven to 180ºC fan force. Line the base with a circle of greaseproof paper.  

For the sugar syrup, combine all ingredients in a pot over low heat. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Set aside.

Pour the sugar syrup at the base of a loose-bottomed deep 8”/23cm cake tin. Place the thyme on the syrup base and scatter the apricot around the base, curve side down, until covered.

In a large bowl or using a free-standing mixer, beat together the butter, 250g of the sugar, the vanilla pod and the zest from one orange. Beat until light and fluffy.

Turn the mixer down to slow speed and gradually add the beaten egg until all combined. Sift together flour and baking powder then add to the mixer with the ground almonds. Finally, fold the yoghurt into the cake batter.

Spoon the cake batter on top of the peach and orange base, filling the tin.

Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for between 45 - 60 minutes or when a cake skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before carefully turning out onto a cooling rack.