Friends, Food and Fun – Stone Fruit Tea Cake

When you move to a new country, the biggest challenge that anybody would face is to build a circle of friends. I found this the most difficult part of settling in a new place. Since the time I remember, I always had a huge group of friends that I could count on. I was always the ” Socializer” like many of my friends called me. I had lots of BFFs (Best friend’s forever). Getting married, didn’t change me in many ways, as being a mother did. Suddenly, the focus of my world became my daughter. Slowly interactions with friends were reduced due the paucity of time. Then country-hopping did not do any favours either.

Today, I have amazing friends on Facebook and twitter, but I still find something amiss in my life. Also the craving to go out and make friends has disappeared too. Too much has changed, too soon. Probably it is an age thing or just a phase in life where I am little cautious before I expose myself emotionally to someone and make friendships. Now I realize the only ones that I can call my BFFs are the ones from school and college. Post that, friendships that I had made have evaporated. They did not stand the test of time. This phase has truly been a revelation where the wheat has been separated from the chaff.

So coming back to friendships in a new place-Friendship is precious to me-  It took me more than a year and a matter of pure chance to be able to meet with some people, whom I can call my friends, here in Bahrain. The very first friend, I met was Namit ( who happens to be my junior from my MBA school); then I met Gayathri ( we have common friends); then Hasina ( whom I met through my blog) and Anamika ( whom I met through her food blog). I meet up with these wonderful people from time to time. That time I must say, laced with good conversations and fabulous food has made wonderful memories.

I do not know what future looks like, in the sense that I might go country hopping again. The thought distresses me slightly even as I write about it. But what I have made sure is, I took a lot of time to build these friendships, so I am going to make the most by spending  quality time with them. Most of my posts about food invariably would have atleast one of them featuring in them. It is cooking/baking for them and my family which makes it worth the while.

So this post is about a certain stone fruit tea cake that I made for one such wonderful afternoon spent with friends- Hasina and Anamika. Both of these young ladies are new mums and fabulous bloggers in their own right. That we all stay at stone’s throw from each other has helped us stay in touch. We met up one lazy afternoon and caught up with the latest in our lives. It is always so good to talk to friends, there is no parallel really. The best part being, we all have children who are so close in age to each other that we can relate to each other’s situation easily.

Now for the recipe, I have been an avid follower of Deeba Rajpal’s blog. I find it fascinating the way she uses fruits in her baking and not to mention her gorgeous photography. One such post on stone fruits in baking caught my eye and I knew I had to try it. The occasion was perfect since it was a tea cake and I was going for a round of tea at Hasina’s place. This recipe is a keeper, in my opinion because the cake by itself is a wonderful one and paired with fruits, it is racing to perfection.  I used stone fruits like cherry, nectarines, peaches and apricots. I am sure plums would be great too. I made some mistakes on the way, which made the whole cake assembly a bit difficult to lift and put on a plate. But I am sure if you follow the recipe to the tee, it would as perfect as you  see on Deeba’s blog.

Recipe for Stone Fruit Tea Cake

from Passionab0utabaking

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter (for greasing pan)
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 110gms unsalted butter, room temperature
• 125gm sugar powdered
• 2 eggs
• Light muscovado sugar for sprinkling over
• apricots, peaches, cherries, nectarines

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease a round tart tin with the tbsp of butter.
2. Run the almond meal, flour, baking powder and salt briefly in a blender to mix
3. Cream the butter and sugar for 3-4 minutes until light. Add the eggs and beat again.
4. On low speed, add the flour mix in 3 goes and blend until just mixed. The dough will be soft. You can divide this into 2 and chill one half. Push the other half to line the base of your tart pan/ baking tin
5. Pit and chop the stone fruit, and scatter evenly over the base lined with dough. Sprinkle generously with sugar if your fruit are sour.
6. Dollop and roughly spread the remaining dough over the top, spreading roughly with an offset spatula. The dough will even out while baking, leaving pretty gaps for the fruit to peep out. Sprinkle over with muscovado sugar.
7. Bake at 170C for about 30 minutes. The top will feel firm and set. Allow to cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from pan.

We, had a good time digging into this tea cake, some delicious cupcakes by Hasina, rounds of tea and juices. Looking forward to many such afternoons of friends, food and fun.