Kerrie Maloney

Anyone who has planted cucumbers or zucchini is only too familiar with the bountiful summer vegetable patch. Add to this, prolific stone fruit trees and a looming tomato crop and the challenge to use up the home produce is on. I love to cook and preserve and have developed excellent relationships with other gardeners. They grow things in their bountiful gardens and I preserve the excess which we share, a win-win situation.  


Cucumber on the vine

In the past month I have been given huge baskets of peaches, nectarines, plums and now pears. I am ever so grateful and have managed to fill my freezer with containers of slow roasted fruit and the pantry with all manner of preserves. There are many jars of jam, plum sauce, plum paste and a twist on my staple tomato and chilli jam made using plums instead of tomatoes and capsicums.

Pureed fruit makes a great base for a cake. I use it frequently to make vegan cakes but also for other fruit based cakes like this Peach Melba cake, a truly decadent celebration of summer fruits. The recipe can be found below.


Peach Melba cake

This Plum Cake is similar to the cake used for the Peach Melba cake, but is much simpler without all the layers and frosting, fantastic served warm for dessert. It is also suitable for vegans if a non dairy or vegan yoghurt is used. Find the full recipe below.

Plum cake baked in Bundt tin

Back to those bountiful cucurbits, Cucumbers are always pickled so that I have a ready supply for one of my favourite and often demanded dips. Click on the links below for the recipe for the dip
https://kerriemaloney.blogspot.com/2019/04/pickled-cucumber-dip.html and the pickled cucumber
https://kerriemaloney.blogspot.com/2018/02/in-pickle.html

Plump cucumbers freshly picked

Preserve zucchini in oil for late autumn and winter antipasto platters, by then everyone will have forgotten that they are tired of zucchini. http://kerriemaloney.blogspot.com/2016/04/zucchini-preserved-in-oil.html

In our house late summer equates to zucchini fritters in all their forms and often thinly peeled slices are used as a substitute for lettuce. http://kerriemaloney.blogspot.com/search?q=better+then+lettuce or http://kerriemaloney.blogspot.com/2016/01/green-gold-for-australia-day-barbecue.html

Zucchini fritters

And if all this doesn’t help with the excess have a look at my blog
https://kerriemaloney.blogspot.com/ and type in zucchini in the search bar.

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Peach Melba Cake

For Cake
Ingredients
200 g peach puree (prepared peaches, skin and stones removed and then pureed)
3/4 cup yoghurt
1 1/2 cups grapeseed or other neutral flavoured oil
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
2 cups plain flour
1 cup almond meal
3 teaspoons baking powder

Method
Preheat oven to 170 deg C, grease and line base of 3 sandwich/sponge cake tins. 
Combine peach puree, sugar, yoghurt, oil and baking powder in a bowl and mix well.
Add almond meal and flour, mix gently until just combined.
Spoon the cake batter into the prepared tins. Bake until cakes are set and starting to shrink away from the sides of the tin, approximately 20 minutes.
Leave the cakes in the tins until cool and then turn out onto a cake cooler.

Cream Filling
Ingredients
300 ml cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Whipped cream and vanilla until stiff
Optional
1 cup cold extra thick custard or pastry cream added to the whipped cream

Buttercream Frosting
250 g soft butter
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons milk or peach liqueur
Beat or cream the butter adding the icing sugar gradually.
Add the vanilla and 1 tablespoon of milk and beat. Check flavour, adding more vanilla if desired.
Add the extra milk for a softer icing.

To Assemble
2 tablespoons peach jam (or apricot if peach unavailable) 
2 -3 sliced yellow peaches, skins removed
1-2 punnets raspberries
1 punnet strawberries
Optional, pink and yellow food colouring

I prefer to assemble on baking parchment on a flat baking tray, chill the frosted cake and then transfer to a serving plate just before decorating.

Place the first layer cake on a serving plate.
Spread with a thin layer of jam.
Cover the jam with a layer of the whipped cream.
Add a few pieces of chopped peach and raspberries.
Repeat with the second layer and the place the final cake layer on top.
If you want the tinted icing remove a small amount of buttercream from the mixture, tint some pink and some pale yellow.
Cover the cake with a thin layer of buttercream frosting and smooth out.
If using the coloured buttercream place small blobs of each colour randomly over the cake, the sides will be seen more than the top. Usie a palette knife, cake scraper to smooth and blend the blobs. A wet palette knife makes this easier.
Decorate the top of the cake with the thinly sliced peaches and raspberries.

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Plum Cake

Ingredients
200 g plum puree (prepared from stewed plums, stones removed and then pureed)
3/4 cup yoghurt (or vegan yoghurt for a vegan cake)
1 1/2 cups grapeseed or other neutral flavoured oil
1 1/2 - 2 cups brown sugar (I use 2 if the plums are really sour)
2 cups plain flour
1 cup almond meal
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons mixed spice
Optional - a few pieces of stewed plum to put into the cake.

Method
Preheat oven to 170 deg C, grease and line base of deep slice tin, ring tin, loaf tin, 2-3 sandwich tins for a layer cake or a well greased Bundt tin. Cooking times vary on the size of the tin with a loaf or regular round tin taking the longest.
Combine plum puree, sugar, yoghurt, oil, spices, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder in a bowl and mix well.
Add almond meal and flour, mix gently until just combined.
Spoon the cake batter into the prepared cake tin(s). Push in plum pieces if adding to the cake. Bake until cakes are set and starting to shrink away from the sides of the tin.
Leave the cakes in the tins until cool and then turn out onto a cake cooler.
Dust with icing sugar or drizzle with a glaze made by combining some of the stewed plum liquid with icing sugar. Great when a loaf is still slightly warm and buttered.

* Text and photos by Kerrie Maloney