This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
We've really enjoyed having Pippa Wright as our author in residence for the past month. Here's the final installment of Ask the Author. Thanks Pippa!
This week a Novelicious reader asks:
If you weren’t an author, what would you be?
Pippa says: I think I’ll probably always be some sort of writer now, even if I’m not
published. I like writing and though I moan about it like mad, I know I’d miss
it if I stopped altogether. But I have always wanted to run a kind of deli/cake
shop.
My friend Suzy and I have sold cakes as part of the Brighton Festival for quite a few years – Suzy’s mum is a jeweller who works from an amazing barn in Sussex which she opens to the public every now and then. We make enticing cakes to tempt people to hang about longer and buy jewels, and they do! Both of us get quite carried away with our creations – they’re usually a bit unusual, things like courgette, coconut and lime cake or a Mexican chocolate cake with cinnamon and chilli. Sometimes Suzy and I get asked if we’d consider baking cakes professionally and it’s a daydream we allow ourselves indulge in from time to time. Once we start doing the sums though, it all becomes a little more frightening. One day though…
Here’s a cake recipe that has always gone down very well, and feels summery now that the sun is finally out. Man, that was a long winter.
Peach, almond & raspberry cake
225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour, sieved
3 large eggs
130g ground almonds
250g peaches, stoned and roughly chopped
200g raspberries
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of an orange
flaked almonds for the top of the cake (you don’t have to do this bit,
but I like the extra crunch)
icing sugar for decoration (again, this is optional)
Grease a 23cm loose-bottomed cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Set the oven at 170C/Gas mark 4. Don’t use the fan setting on your oven, just the regular one, or the cake rises too fast.
Cream together the butter & sugar until it’s gone pale (almost white) and fluffy – I use a food processor for this otherwise it kills your arms. If you don’t have a food processor wait until someone idly wanders into the kitchen and asks if you need help. Give them this task & run away for at least ten minutes. Downside: they may never offer to help again.
Beat the eggs lightly and add them, a little bit at a time, to the butter and sugar. If it looks like it might curdle then stir in some of the flour. You can do this in the food processor, but on a slow speed and in stages. Add the orange zest and the vanilla and make sure they’re stirred in properly. A big lump of orange zest is an unpleasant thing to find in a slice of cake.
Add the peaches and raspberries. For obvious reasons you don’t do this bit in the food processor – you want chunks of fruit in your cake, not mush. Stir them in with a spoon.
Scrape it all into the tin, flatten out the top, and sprinkle with flaked almonds if you’re using them. The cake needs to cook for around an hour and 10 minutes, but check it after 40 minutes. If the top is looking a little too brown then cover it with foil for the rest of the cooking time. It’s ready when a skewer comes out fairly clean (it’s never going to be completely clean with this kind of fruity cake).
Cool the cake in the tin, as it’s liable to break apart while it’s hot. I like to serve it dusted with icing sugar, but you can serve it plain if you prefer.
Or just come and try it when I finally open up my cake shop.