letscrush

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Stone Fruit Tea Cake

I'm currently reading a book by an English writer and it's got me thinking about tea time in a whole new way. When he talks about missing his tea time, it sounds like he really missed something that he considered one of the highlights of the day. Why not take a little break at 4pm every day with a nice cup of tea and maybe a biscuit or sweet of some sort? Spaniards have their siestas, the UK has their tea time and I think I feel a little peckish and run-down at that time each day and could really benefit from this new habit. And, as we all know, just as it can be hard to stop a habit, it can be hard to start a habit too. I think this delicious recipe helps. The ingredients in this recipe are simple and mostly on hand. I recently got suckered into buying a nicely packaged bag of plums at the store and found this recipe to be a great way to go through them. I added some of the blueberries that were in my freezer from a big blueberry picking frenzy a few weeks ago, and voila!, it made a lovely tea cake.
The recipe is as follows:
3/4 Cups room temperature butter
2 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp Baking powder
1 Cup Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
2 1/2 Cups Stone fruit (Peaches, Plums, Nectarines, whatever, coarsely chopped, fresh or frozen)
1 T turbinado sugar
Begin by preheating the oven at 375 degrees (although I recently read that preheating isn't so necessary and why waste extra energy). Mix the flour and baking powder together and set aside. Beat the butter and add sugar slowly until it becomes creamy and light (most easy by using a paddle mixer). Add the eggs, one by one so that the mixture gets light and fluffy. Add the vanilla. Mix this with the flour mixture and put ball of dough in plastic wrap, then freeze for thirty minutes. When ready, take half of the dough and press to bottom of a buttered, shallow tart dish or 10x10 size pan. (I think shallow is better here) Pour in your chopped fruit and with remaining dough, form tablespoon size "cookies" and put on top. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until lightly golden brown on top.
Scrumptious and easy.
---Nell

5 comments:

jaime said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Skye said...

I love the idea of tea time too! Who's little hand is that in the blueberries?

What book are you reading?

jaime said...

I love cobblery sweets! The little teacup and saucer are so dainty!

Anonymous said...

just browsing over the blog and wanted to say I love that little fat hand in the berry bowl!

Jaime said...

that was me being anonymous...sorry, I clicked to quick.