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The Recipe
Ingredients:
(Approximate non-metric equivalents are given in the video above)
- 175g soft butter
- 175g Self-raising flour
- 175g + 2 Tablespoons Caster sugar
- 3 Large eggs - (ideally that have been allowed to warm to room temperature*)
- 1 Heaped Teaspoon Baking Powder
- Fresh raspberries - about a cupful (quantity not critical)
- 1 ripe pear
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
Method:
Use the vegetable oil to thoroughly grease the inside of a large ovenproof dish.
Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar evenly over the base of the dish.
Peel and chop the pear into small pieces - arrange these evenly over the base of the dish.
Preheat your oven to 180C (approximately 350F or Gas Mark 4)
Put all of the other ingredients together into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until they are combined to a smooth batter with no lumps. Spoon blobs of this batter on top of the fruit, then spread it out evenly with a knife or spatula.
Bake in the oven for 25 minutes - after this time, check it - if it's still wobbly or soft in the middle, return it to the oven for a further 5 minutes, then check again.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the dish and carefully turn out the cake onto a large plate (to avoid disaster, put the plate upside down on top of the cake dish, then turn it all over at once) - be careful here as the dish and the cake will still be quite hot.
Serve hot with cream, thick custard or vanilla ice cream
Instead of the raspberries and pear, almost any fruit can be used - blueberries, apple, cherries, peaches - even tinned pineapple rings. If you have the time and patience, arranging the fruit artfully in the bottom of the dish will make it look really impressive when it is turned out.
If you allow the eggs to warm to room temperature - just by taking them out of the fridge a few hours before use - it should result in a better 'rise' - and therefore a lighter, more fluffy-textured cake.
