Apricot Cornmeal Cake

Italy introduced me to apricots many years ago when I was a child. The blushing orange fruit would just be coming into season when we arrived in Rome at the end of the school year, and for the next month or so I ate them every day and at every meal, the pits piling up on my plate like small brown beach stones.

Their floral aroma and dense, sweet-tart flesh appealed to me. I liked them better than peaches, or cherries, or any summer fruit. Apricots are still my favorite fruit, though it is hard to find decent ones here on the East Coast of the U.S.; they rarely turn up at my local farmers' market, and the ones I've made the mistake of buying from the supermarket have either been as hard as bocce balls or dismayingly mealy.

A couple of weeks ago I got lucky. There was a small bin of apricots at the Twin Springs Fruit Farm stall at my local farmers' market near Mount Vernon. I swear I could feel them glowing quietly in that bin before I set eyes upon them. I scooped up a bunch and asked owner-farmer Aubrey King if there would be more next week. But no, he explained, it had been a difficult season for apricots and this was all there would be. I scooped up more. Over the next few days I ate a bunch. They were milder than the Italian ones I remembered, but they had a lovely sweet-tart balance and dense, juicy flesh. I had a cake in mind, so I set aside a dozen or so for testing.

It took two tries, but this is it and it is special: a tender cornmeal cake topped with fresh apricot halves and a crunchy almond-butter mixture. The almonds turn toasty brown, the butter melts into the batter, and the apricots sink halfway into the cake as it bakes. There's a trick to achieving this, by the way: you bake the cake partway, then (quickly) arrange the apricot halves on top and return the cake to the oven. The oven's heat turns the fruit jammy and amplifies its tartness.

This recipe is based on the Plum-Almond Cake on p. 188 of my book Williams-Sonoma Rustic Italian. I made some minor tweaks and swapped in fine cornmeal for the almond flour and apricots for plums. But the basic recipe is the same. If you are lucky to still have access to good apricots, go for it. But don’t worry if the fruit has vanished for the season: substitute sliced peaches (ripe but still firm) or a scattering of berries. Just remember to scoop up those apricots next summer.

APRICOT CORNMEAL CAKE
Makes one 8-inch cake, to serve 8-10

Ingredients
1/2 cup (125 ml) sunflower or extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing the baking pan
1 cup (125 g) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the baking pan
1/2 cup (60 g) fine cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup half-and-half or whole milk
Finely grated zest of 1 small lemon
1 cup (200 g) sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
6 ripe (but not mushy) apricots, halved and pitted
1/4 cup (30 g) sliced almonds
2 tablespoons (28 g) salted butter, at room temperature
Confectioners' sugar for dusting
Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Instructions
1. Heat the oven to 375° F (190° C). Lightly oil an 8-inch (20-cm) springform pan. Line the bottom with a round of parchment and oil it. Dust the inside of the pan with flour and tap out the excess.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the oil, egg, half-and-half, lemon zest, 1 cup sugar, and almond extract, mixing until thoroughly blended.

3. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and whisk until just combined. Do not overmix. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Set the pan in the oven to bake for 15 minutes.

4. Combine the sliced almonds, 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons butter in a small bowl and mix it all up with a fork or your fingers until it clumps together.

5. When the timer dings remove the partially baked cake from the oven and arrange the apricot halves on top, cut side up. Drop little clumps of the almond-butter mixture all over the surface of the cake, including on top of the apricot halves. Work carefully but quickly; you don't want the cake to cool too much.

6. Return the cake to the oven to finish baking for 40 to 45 minutes, until the topping is golden-brown and the cake is puffed up around the fruit. A cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean.

7. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and let cool 10 minutes. Remove the ring from the pan and let the cake cool another 30 to 45 minutes, until cool enough to handle. Carefully invert the cake onto another rack and remove the bottom and the round of parchment. Re-invert onto a serving platter.

8. Dust with confectioners' sugar right before serving and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you like.