What do you do when you feel like eating cake, you don’t have one in the house and you don’t feel like going to the shops because it is raining cats and dogs?

Well,  I say: bake a cake!

And there are plenty of cakes you can make without any exotic or special ingredients, just using what you have in the house. This cake is one of those. Everybody who bakes, even on a non-regular basis, will have flour, butter, sugar, eggs and baking powder in the cupboard and fridge. I had fresh apricots and raspberries at hand, but this recipe works equally well with fresh or canned apples, peaches, cherries, plums, etc. and it can be decorated with nuts, raisins, seeds – whatever you fancy.

Grease a round baking tin (28 cm in diameter) and pre-heat your oven to 190C, 175C for a fan oven or gas mark 5.

For the dough you need:

• 250 g unsalted butter
• 250 g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 400 g flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Beat the butter and the sugar with a hand mixer and add the one egg after the other until the mixture is creamy. Gradually add the flour and baking powder while still mixing. Fill the dough into the cake tin.

For the topping you need:

• 500 g fresh apricots
• a few raspberries
• 3 tablespoons of almond flakes
• 3 tablespoons of reduced calorie apricot jam

Cut the apricots in half, take the stones out and arrange the fruit on the dough. Put a little bit of apricot jam into each apricot half and place a raspberry on top.

Bake for 1 1/4 hours. Check with a wooden tooth pick if the cake is cooked properly (stick the tooth pick in the cake and if it comes out clean, it’s done). If not, return to the oven for a few more minutes and check regularly if it is ready. If the top is already quite brown, cover with aluminium foil.

Leave to stand and cool. Warm up the remainder of the apricot jam (put it in a mug and heat it up in a pan full of water) and while the cake is still warm, use a brush to glaze the top of the cake with the jam.

I like the contrast of the sweet cake with the slightly tart apricots and raspberries and it tastes heavenly with vanilla sugar laced whipped cream.

But this is a great cake to take to a summer picnic or bake-off as it holds its shape very well and there is no cream in it that could go off on a hot day.

Enjoy!