The church biscuit: 54. Peach Melba Squares (GoodFood: cupcakes and small bakes; BBC Books 2010)
From GoodFood: Cupcakes and small bakes (BBC Books 2010)
The sun is shining (although it’s not that warm), the elderflower is coming out (note to self: collect in about 7-10 days for elderflower cordial) and this morning we had these lovely light fresh peach and raspberry squares made yesterday for the sewing bee. Delicious and refreshing – a hit with everyone. They also cut easily into ever smaller squares so went round all parishioners and still left the vicar an extra square for his journey home.
The church biscuit: 54. Peach Melba Squares (GoodFood: cupcakes and small bakes; BBC Books 2010)
Ingredients
250 g unsalted butter
300g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
200g self-raising flour
50 g ground almonds
2 ripe peaches, stoned, halved and the halves cut into 3-4 pieces
100g fresh raspberries
handful of flaked almonds
icing sugar to dust
The church biscuit: 54. Peach Melba Squares (GoodFood: cupcakes and small bakes; BBC Books 2010)
Butter and line a tray 20 x 30 cm with baking parchment.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/ 160 degrees C for a fan oven/gas 4
Gently melt the butter in a large pan, cool for 5 minutes, add sugar, vanilla and eggs, then beat until smooth. Beat in sifted flour and ground almonds and a quarter teasp salt (optional. I prefer no salt.)
Tip the mixture into the prepared tin, then lay rows of the sliced peaches on top. Scatter raspberries and flaked almonds on top. (I pressed the peaches and raspberries down into the mixture a bit but it probably wasn’t necessary.)
Bake for 1 hour/1 hour 10 minutes, covering with foil after 40 minutes. Test with a skewer; the middle should have just a hint at squidginess which will firm up as the cake cools. Cool in tin for 20 minutes, then lift out on to a wire cooling rack. When cold dredge with icing sugar (which I forgot to do). Cut into squares.
The recipe suggested cutting it into 12 squares at 385 calories each
We cut ours into 30 not quite squares at about 150 calories each which were plenty big enough.
(Some eaten the day before)
6 Comments
Eek, yes, I need to find an elderflower bush somewhere sensible so I can make elderflower fritters – a once-a-year treat..
Gosh elderflower fritters sounds amazing – am I brave enough for deep fat frying?
This is such a summery sounding bake! Anything with flaked almonds piques my interest x
Yes Penny, almonds of any sort get me excited too and the cake did make a nice day feel even more summery.
Yum! The 7th June is my brother’s birthday and I know he would just love these little treats that is if I had made them. I too love flaked almonds – that toasty taste. Mmmm…
Thank you Lydia. This recipe has the merit of being very quick as you just throw everything in together.