Fruit pastry cake

Baking has become such a joy for me especially if I can find a good recipe to work on. I would wait in anticipation for the cake to be baked and try it instantly.

I love fruits to be included in baking too. They gives such a natural sweetness to the overall taste !

After reading a blog from "happyhomebaking", a recipe with plentiful of fruits caught my eyes. The author named it as "Fruit Pastry Cake".

The cake appeared to be so pretty in her blog. The array of colours were very attractive and I'm sure it tasted as good as it looked. Yeah, I was determined to try this recipe. In my cabinet, there is a can of peach and mandarin orange which were lying there for almost a month, therefore I just bought a box of blue berries to go with what I have. A hint of red would be nice but I just wanted to make use of the canned fruits first.

 After the batter has been done, this was the fun part of this cake, decoration !!!

 I love how the mandarin orange formed a little flower in the middle of the cake. However, when the cake was baked and cut, it kinda sunk down. I arrived that the mandarin orange was too juicy.

 I will definitely use strawberries or apples for the next cake. The peaches and blue berries were  awesome choice s for this cake ! The cake somehow appeared to be over-baked at 180 degree for my oven. Will lower the temperature for my next attempt or cover the top of the cake with aluminium sheet after half an hour of baking.

 

CK love this cake ! It was pretty near dinner time and he actually ate 3 slices ! I brought 4 slices for mum and dad. Mum tried it and she loved it too ! So much for a happy Sunday !

As adapted from:http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.sg/
Ingredients:

100g butter, soften at room temperature
200g caster sugar (I cut down to180g)
50g sour cream (I replaced with same amount of low fat yogurt) - I use strawberry yogurt
3 eggs, lightly beaten, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest
210g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
500g fruits* tossed with 2 tablespoon sugar*

 Method:

1. Wash, cut (chunks or slices, as desired) and drain fruits, toss with sugar (if desired) and set aside. (if using canned fruits, wash the fruits to remove the syrup, omit the sugar).
2. Grease (with butter) and flour the side of a 9" round pan or a 8" square pan and line the base with parchment paper.
3. With an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and sour cream (or yogurt) till light and fluffy.
4. Dribble in the eggs gradually and beat till incorporated in the batter. (The mixture may appear slightly curdled.)
5. Add vanilla extract and zest. Mix to combine.
6. Sieve over flour and baking powder and mix till smooth. (To avoid getting flour all over my work surface, I mixed the flour into the batter using a spatula, just a few strokes will do, then I used the electric mixer to mix the batter till smooth.)
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out the top with a spatula.
8. Arrange fruits on top, don’t press the fruits down into the batter. Decorate the fruits as desired.
9. Bake in pre-heat oven at 180degC for 60-70 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake. Cover the top with foil in the last 15 mins of baking to prevent the top from getting over browned.
10. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 5~10 mins. Unmold and transfer to wire rack to let cool completely. Dust the cake with some icing sugar if desired.