Summer Cake and Tropical Fruit

Tropical Fruit topped  Summer cake

A cake with fresh flavours that is a wonderful choice for a pool party, a bbq or a tea party.

The little black spot in the picture is the piece of vanilla bean added for the final perfection to this topping.

The Papaya in syrup topping for the freshly baked cake!!

Ingredients

5 oz  salted butter by weight

1 cup sugar

zest of  2 oranges

4 eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup sifted all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients for the topping

1 1/4 cup fresh orange juice

1/2 cup sugar

salt

tropical fruits of choice, a mango, small papaya or pineapple

squeeze of lemon 

Method

With an electric  beater whip until pale and light  

butter and sugar with the fresh orange zest.

Now add to it the eggs, one at a time

just mix in the sour cream.

Now with a spatula fold in by hand the sifted flour, baking powder and salt until just combined.

Pour into a prepared pan of 8 inches, buttered and floured.

Bake in a preheated oven of 350F/175C degrees till tester comes out clean about 30-40 minutes.

Sprinkle with icing sugar once cooled for visual effect.

For the topping

In a pan

1 1/4 cup fresh orange juice

add about  1/2 cup sugar to it, you may need a bit more if the oranges are very sour.

Optionally a piece of vanilla bean

Mix till all the sugar is dissolved. Bring this to a boil, lower the heat and gently let it simmer till syrupy.

Add to it from a choice of

One fresh papaya, quite firm, in small pieces

Or one large ripe but firm mango

Or half a fresh pineapple

A dash of salt

A squeeze of lemon 

Give it a boil just to incorporate the flavours.

Cool and serve as topping with the cake.

Tips
If you are buying fresh orange juice and do not wish to get more oranges use lemon zest instead.
The perfect choice of orange is a honey tangerine. The colour is beautiful as is the fragrance. Narangi and Kino is the counterpart in the Eastern world.
Vanilla bean is a luxury and not a necessity. Instead  simply add a drop of vanilla essence, literally a drop or a grain of vanilla bean paste at the very end once the syrup is made.
Use firm but ripe fruit for this.
A food processor will work well to beat the butter sugar and eggs. Stop and complete by hand.

For more delicious recipes from Niloufer's Kitchen download 
Niloufer's Kitchen: Spanish Tapas

or any other of your choice from the 
series of 10 http://www.nilouferskitchen.com/p/e-cookbooks.html