Aprikosen Kuchen

I must admit that as much as I love cooking, baking cakes has never really been my cuppa tea. I've always looked forward to birthdays in our family because it meant that my mother and sister would be busy planning and baking their next cake. Dropping by the kitchen to lick the cake batter off the bowl was more like my kinda thing to do.
Recently, ever since Harsh's birthday, I've suddenly felt inspired to start baking cakes. And I must tell you...it's very addictive!!
My first was a simple, microwave recipe for a  chocolate-walnut cake that I found on Sanjeev Kapoor's website. I then tried making his equally simple Zesty Lemon Cake. Happy with my efforts and the results I decided to try something else.
Just last weekend I'd bought a bagful of apricots at the farmer's market. I sometimes get carried away while buying fruit and end up buying a lot more that I can eat. Baking an Apricot Cake seemed like the perfect plan!!

I searched the internet and found a German recipe for the cake.

It's a great recipe but I've made a few changes to it.

Ingredients:


Softened butter - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Eggs - 3
Maida/Flour - 2 cups
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Soda Bicarbonate - 1 tsp
1/4 cup - beaten curds
Fresh Apricots (cut in half) - 8-10

Method:


Sieve together the maida, baking powder and soda bicarbonate and set aside.
In a separate bowl cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla essence. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the flour, a little at a time and mix. Now, add the curds. Mix/beat well.

Grease the cake tin lightly with butter. Transfer the batter in the cake tin and place the apricots on top (cut side facing down).
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for 40 minutes.

Serve with sweetened whipped cream.