Yeasted apricot cake

Since returning from my two week trip to colder climes over Christmas, I've been doing my best to make the most of summer fruit. Top of my list was this cake, which I first made a few years ago when a friend gave me a box of apricots as a Christmas present (she knows me well). Apart from showcasing apricots in all their glory - no complicated pre-cooking required, just remove the stones, quarter the fruit, and pop on the top - the enriched dough is lightly infused with lemon and sprinkled with crunchy cardamom sugar. It's simple yet stunning, more like a pastry really than a cake. A warning writ large in the title - yeast is involved here as the rising agent. If you're nervous about that, don't be. The recipe requires only one proofing period, so not a big time commitment. Don't worry if the dough doesn't double in size. I've read only recently this is a fallacy. You just need it to be discernibly bigger. If the dough hasn't noticeably increased in size in the suggested time, let it sit a bit longer. Hold your nerve. All will be well. And you'll have a wonderful cake at the end to show for it.

Simple summer cake

It's been a sombre summer in Australia. Here in Sydney, we're safe from the fires but have been under a thick cloud of smoke since November. That's nothing to complain about compared to the rural and coastal communities north and south of us who've borne the brunt of this climate crisis but I lately haven't felt much like baking or writing about it. With all the footage of fires, and daily reminders of the devastation (awaking to ash blown in with the wind, birds flying indoors in search of water, a blood red sun, people in masks in the streets), it's impossible to be unaffected emotionally by all this. Baking has always been something that makes me feel better. So in an effort to do that recently I made this simple summer cake. I'm glad I did. For the short time it took to make it felt good to be doing something normal when the world right now feels anything but. In times like these it's important to be grateful for the small things. So make cake, share it with people you love, and start a conversation about what you can do.

Apricot raspberry rose galette

Killing time in South Brisbane recently on a recent trip to my hometown, I spent a delightful half hour browsing the aisles of Triton Food Brokers, a treasure trove of imported European grocery items and bulk foods in an unassuming stretch of Montague Rd. In amongst the baklava, and olives, haloumi and marzipan, pastizzi and pomegranate molasses I found edible rose petals for $1.50 and bargain barberries (a find for an owner of multiple Ottolenghi cookbooks who has up til now just been subbing in cranberries because she thought he made them up). I wasn't sure when I'd use the rose petals, but paging through a cookbook I got for Christmas, I came across this recipe for apricot raspberry rose galette. It was fated as I've been trying to make the most of summer fruit before disappearing for a month into winter. A galette is basically the lazy person's pie (half the rolling and no crimping or complicated lattice work) but better still, its open top allows you to see the glorious colours of the fruit within. And this is one of the prettiest palettes you'll see - orange and red and pink. The crust is made with cornmeal, which gives it a nice texture, a lovely contrast with the jamminess of the fruit. A fitting farewell to summer.

Moroccan-spiced tea loaf

Once a year, in December, I make fruitcake. It's my grandmother's recipe. In my family, it was first made by her, then by my mother, now by me, and mainly for my dad, who's been eating it at Christmas for pretty well all of his life. It requires a truck load of dried fruit, soaking it liberally in booze, and a sleep after eating a slice. Sometimes, in seasons other than summer, I have a craving for fruitcake but just thinking about what making it entails - a trip to the supermarket, an overnight soaking of fruit, an enormous cake that takes weeks to get through - is enough to quell that desire... or at least it was until I came across this recipe in the newspaper last weekend.

Miraculously, this is a fruitcake in loaf form that can be whipped up semi-spontaneously (granted you still need to a trip to the supermarket and to soak the dried fruit but ingeniously, in hot tea rather than alcohol), contains only one egg, and no dairy at all. I was dubious, at first thinking there must have been a typo in the recipe, but no. It works wonderfully. The resultant loaf is rich and fruity, warm with spice, and scrumptious sliced thickly and slathered in butter. My grandmother would certainly approve, even if she might swap the unfamiliar Moroccan spice for something more standard like cinnamon, and write it up in her recipe book as Fast Fruitcake.