Upside-down peach cake + honey syrup

I started my final grade 11 exams this week, well technically as you are reading this now I will have actually started them last week. They have been quite the challenge so far. Each exam brings new challenges to the table. It’s not that I don’t understand the work; it’s just that I struggle to interpret the questions and answer them as much to the point as possible. Words are not my strong point, and so that’s why I am very lucky that I can communicate through my images.

It was so nice to take this Friday afternoon to just simply bake and not worry about anything else. This makes me very excited for my end of year holidays which are coming up quite soon. I seem to have forgotten my love for baking. I guess if you do something over and over again it becomes quite repetitive and boring. What I have realised now is that the special healing powers of baking work best when you are feeling stressed and chaotic. Talk about chaos, I keep on loosing things. But I actually don’t loose them, because I know exactly where they are. It’s more like forgetting things and leaving them behind in strange places. My mind is definitely in way too many places at once. Here’s a fun example, I thought that I had lost my water bottle a few weekends back and caused quite the scene at home blaming my sister for throwing it away. Turns out when I got to school on the Monday it was sitting in my locker quietly waiting for me. So clearly I need a holiday, but for now I’ll just bake some upside down peach cake to represent my upside down life.

This is such a sweet (both cute and flavour sweet) cake. On top, sit peach halves, which are soft and squidgy as they baked in the oven under the light load of a sponge cake flavoured with vanilla extract and lemon zest. The cake is topped with a golden syrup made using honey, lemon juice, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. Each slice is the perfect balance between sweet and tangy.

Upside down peach cake with honey syrup

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

Topping:

• 3 cling or dessert peaches, sliced in half and pitted
• 1 tbs castor sugar

Sponge:

• 150g room temperature butter
• 150g castor sugar
• 2 eggs
• 200 plain flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 125ml full cream milk
• zest of one lemon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Honey syrup:

• juice of half a lemon
• 2 tbs honey
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius and grease an 18cm round baking tin with a little butter.

Topping:

Sprinkle castor sugar over the base of your cake tin and then arrange your peach halves on top of that. Set to one side for the moment.

Sponge:

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add in one egg at a time and continue mixing until smooth. Alternately add the flour and milk into the egg and sugar mixture starting and ending with the flour. Add the remainder of the sponge ingredients and continue mixing until a smooth batter forms.

Pour the batter over the prepared peaches, in the baking tin, and place into the oven. Leave to bake for 40-50 minutes. By that time it will have risen and formed a golden crust. Poke with a toothpick, if it comes out clean the sponge is cooked all the way through. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before removing from the baking tin.

Honey syrup:

Place all of your syrup ingredients into a saucepan over a medium heat. Mix until it comes to a light simmer remove from the heat and pour into a jar.

Assembly:

Place the cake upside down onto your serving plate. Spoon the honey syrup over the top of the cake.