Apricot Upside Down Cake with Apricot Ripple Icecream

Dinner with friends. Everyone was back from their holidays, relaxed, the perfect opportunity to catch up before returning to work and school. The group has been connected to each other in someway for at least twenty five years and has that easy familiarity that comes with long standing friendships. We often share the cooking, this dessert was our contribution.

Our hosts - Many hands make light work or is it too many cooks?















Dinner served, the guests clearly relaxed and having fun.





Still using up apricots from the garden. The cake is a gluten free almond cake, made with this recipe. Only the cake part was used and I increased the gluten free flour to 1/2 cup as I wanted a stiffer mixture to compensate for the moisture of the apricots. The cake has lightly roasted apricots on the base, tinned could be used and a sprinkle of dark brown sugar in the base.

Grease and line the base of a springform tin with baking parchment.  Grease the sides of the tin.

Sprinkle two tablespoons dark brown sugar over the base of the cake tin.

Arrange apricot halves over the base, cut side down leaving. Leave a gap of 1 cm between the apricots and the edge of the tin.

Spoon mixture over the top of the apricots.

Smooth with a wet spatula or spoon. Place cake tin on a tray and bake at 160 deg C until cooked. Reduce oven temperature to 150 if the cake is becoming too brown.

Remove from oven and stand for 10 minutes, loosen the sides of the tin, remove and aallow cake to cool.

Invert cake onto a serving plate.

Apricot Swirl Icecream

600 ml cream

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 can condensed milk

1 cup apricot puree, made from stewed or roasted fresh apricots

Whip cream and vanilla until stiff, beat in condensed milk. Take care to just mix the condensed milk through and do not overbeat.

Spoon a layer of cream mixture into a container.

Drop heaped spoonfuls of the apricot puree across the surface of the cream.

Add another layer of the cream mixture, repeat process until the container is full.

Draw a skewer through the layers to create the swirls.

Freeze.

Remove from feezer and  place in the fridge for half an hour to allow the icecream to soften slighly.