Boom! We taught our FIRST baking demo at Harris Academy Greenwich yesterday, we gave a careers talk and we now offer enrolment to any student who wants to learn- for free! This is all thanks to YOU. On top of that, our friends at PME kindly donated 30 bakeware tins which we used during the class and each student then took home with their proud bake (maybe not much of it, but a slice or two we hope).
One of the main reasons WHY Damson Jelly Academy was set up was so that we could fund more food based education to those who want to learn. Therefore for every basic course sold we give one back to a kid in a school, more on that here.
We decided to teach a 'Peach & ricotta upside down cake.' Not only because it's erm... STUNNING. But because it also allows for conversations around seasonality, produce, technique and more. That's exactly how we teach our courses, our end goal is equipping you with all of the tools, confidence and knowledge you need to fly!
Now, onto the recipe bit. I used the base recipe of my 'Cherry & ricotta cake' from last year and made an upside down cake instead. It works so nicely with the peaches at the bottom as they slightly caramelise in that sprinkle of light brown sugar. The drizzle of golden syrup at the end is naughty, but worth it. Another thing that's super nice to do is to add a few sprigs of thyme to the peaches when mixing them with the sugar.
Makes 1 x 8 inch cake
We used this tin from PME. Use the code ' DJAVICSPONGE ' for 20% off!
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.
Thanks again for making this demo possible you bunch of LEGENDS. To find out more about our courses and to enrol, click here.
