This easy summer picnic cake recipe is what you’re looking for: something fast to make, something that travels well, something that tastes even better if made the day before or forgotten on the counter for several hours. A cake that can even redeem itself if overbaked.
It’s the cake you need in your back pocket all summer – when the heat has sapped your energy to do anything of note, but you still need to eat cake.
This cake is basically the famous New York Times’ Plum Torte by Marian Burros with a couple ideas taken from a well intentioned but poorly written Bon Appétit recipe for an upside-down cherry cake.
Lemon zest adds a bite to the cake and a cast iron pan makes this cake less finicky. You can have cake without a fancy pan.
Any fruit you have on hand works, cut it into large chunks, if you even cut it at all. As the cake cooks, you have jammy pools of perfection that sauce your cake.
When it comes out of the pan, the jammy, fruit top with crisp, cakey edges is just impressive enough. No need to top or frost this cake.
It is stable enough to eat by hand sitting on a picnic blanket, but also soft enough that you don’t need to lug whipped cream or ice cream with you. Leftovers will certainly not return with you home from the picnic, but if they did, they’d be delicious for breakfast the next morning.
This cake likes to sit on the counter for a couple hours or overnight. Feel free to bake it the evening the day before or in the early morning. Take advantage of the cool parts of the day; your cake and your kitchen will thank you.
Easy Summer Picnic Cake with Fruit on Top
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- Pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- Zest from 1 lemon
- 6 large apricots, quartered (plums or other seasonal fruit, cut into large chunks)
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
- Step 2 Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour, salt, and baking powder. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the lemon zest.
- Step 3 Lightly oil a 10 inch cast iron skillet (or cake pan). Spoon the cake batter into your pan, place the fruit on top, skin side up, pressing it in gently.
- Step 4 Bake until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean (45-50 minutes). Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan.
- Step 5 Slide a knife around the edge of the cake before flipping it out onto a wire rack or cutting board. Flip once more onto a wire rack so that the crispy, fruit side is upright and allow the cake to cool.
