Cornershop Cake

OK. Picture this. The weather is dreadful. There is snow and we are not talking about the sort of downfall that makes you dream of lightly dusted picture perfect mince pies. This is the triple iced grotty stuff, bane of the commuter and the sort of barrier to travel that means that anyone who would even consider going further than the corner shop is clearly deranged.

The day is long, the sky overcast and you need cake to while away the hours before dinner. Cue a recipe for the lazy foodie.



Ingredients
Tin of peaches (or pears, or any tinned fruit knocking around in the cupboard)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
125gr unsalted butter
125gr caster sugar
2 large eggs
125gr sieved self-raising flour

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Grease and lightly flour your ovenproof dish.
Dump the fruit into the bowl and space it out evenly.
Beat together the butter, caster sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add the flour and mix thoroughly. If the mixture is a little dry, add some of the fruit juice from the tin and then spread over the fruit. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve with any of hot custard, ice-cream or creme fraiche. Whatever you eat it with make sure a large steaming mug of tea is involved.

The above takes all of ten minutes if you have a hand mixer so this leaves you time to flick through your latest copy of Olive, watch Nigel Slater on Iplayer or update your food blog.

With apologies for the poorly lit cake piccies and thanks for the recipe inspiration - adapted from Jamie Olivers "Sheila's Pud".