Recipes: Isobel's Apricot Jam & Apricot Upside-Down Cake

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Thanks for this classic pair of recipes goes to Community Carrot board member Isobel Knox. Making staples like jam can turn fresh eyes on moments we usually take for granted - what can be more commonplace than bread and jam? But re-set that snack with slowly crafted sourdough from a bakery like the Dunbar Community Bakery (which we can add to veg boxes), topped with jam you have personally stirred to setting point, and it is transformed.

You probably don’t need selling on home-made cake…

Apricot Jam

Ingredients
2.25 kg apricots
2 kg sugar
Juice of 1 lime

Method

  1. Wash and cut apricots into quarters, discard the stones. Don't worry about the skins, they dissolve in the boiling!

  2. Put in a large jam pan with the sugar, lime juice and a mug of water. Keep stirring as you bring to the boil on high heat on the stove. Keep it on a full rolling boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Test for jelling - dot a teaspoonful on a cold plate and test if the jam wrinkles when you draw your finger across it. Boil for a further 5 minutes if necessary.

  4. Transfer while still hot to sterilised jars.

Apricot Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients
2 eggs
Equal weight self-raising flour, softened butter and caster sugar to eggs (in their shells)
4 - 5 apricots, halved and de-stoned
2 tablespoons apricot jam or golden syrup

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C / gas mark 4.

  2. Butter a cake tin, pyrex or ceramic flat dish well, then spread the base with apricot jam or golden syrup.

  3. Combine the flour, eggs, butter and sugar and mix well. Mix them together any way you like, it makes no difference as long as all your ingredients are room temperature and not just out of the fridge.

  4. Put halved apricots flat side down on the butter and jammed tin base, then spread the sponge mix on top.

  5. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes, until you can inset a skewer and it comes out clean.

  6. Rest it for a couple of minutes after you take it out of the oven, then loosen the sides with a knife, put a plate over the cake and flip it over. Lift the baking pan off - carefully!

RecipesHannah Ewanapricot jam, recipe, apricot upside down cake, seasonal, Seasonal Spotlight, summer