The Peach Cake You’ll Make Every Summer

Italian peaches are properly abundant at the moment, and the fruit this year has tasted incredible. It’s the kind of summer where you should be eating as much of them as possible, while it’s here.

At Gina, we’ve been using peaches in our cobbler, which has quickly become one of our best-selling puddings. Warm fruit, soft topping, plenty of cream - it’s hard to go wrong.

For this recipe, I wanted to share something just as useful but a little more showy: a peach and ricotta upside-down cake. It’s genuinely beautiful and it’s the sort of cake that is very handy to have in your back pocket. The peaches soften and caramelise into the brown sugar as it bakes, while the ricotta keeps the cake soft and tender underneath.

It’s simple enough to make without too much fuss, but looks like you’ve made a real effort. Exactly the sort of recipe I think is worth keeping. The trick is to not overmix the batter once the ricotta is in and to keep an eye on the bake. Always test this one with a skewer to ensure it’s evenly baked throughout.

Makes 1 x 8 inch cake

We used this tin from PME.

Ingredients:

5 ripe peaches

2 tbsp light brown sugar

140g unsalted butter at room temp

+ extra for buttering

220g caster sugar

3 eggs

165g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

250g ricotta

1 x orange zest

1 tbsp amaretto/almond essence (optional)

To finish

2 tbsp golden syrup/honey

1 x handful of roasted flaked almonds (optional)

Icing sugar to dust

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 160 fan/180 oven

• Grease and line a cake tin on the bottom and sides with parchment paper

• Cut the peaches in half, remove the stones, mix with the light brown sugar, set aside

• In a separate bowl beat the butter, sugar, orange zest and salt together until pale and fluffy (add the amaretto/almond essence if using)

• Add in the eggs, mixing well in between each addition

• In another bowl stir together the plain flour and baking powder

• Add the flour mixture into the cake batter, mix well

• Fold in the ricotta

• Arrange the peach halves in the bottom of the tin making sure the halves (exposed side) are facing down and are flat

• Dollop the cake batter on top and bake for 1 hour - 1 hour 15 minutes, or until when a skewer is inserted into the very middle of the cake, it comes out clean. This is very important!

• Allow to cool for 20 minutes before flipping out onto a plate and drizzling with golden syrup, sprinkling over the almonds and dusting some icing sugar!

Notes:

Serve with clotted cream, pouring cream, custard or on it's own

This cake will keep for 3 days stored at room temperature in an airtight container.

Enjoy, from the team at Gina.

If you’re looking for a place to eat Peaches, you can find them on our summer dessert menu in the form of Peach Cobbler. Enjoy this and other dishes at Gina this weekend. Book a table here