Two French sisters, Caroline and Stephanie Tatin lived in Lamotte-Beuvron, a small
rural town in the Loire Valley of France, owned and ran the hotel called l’Hotel Tatin
in 1888. The story goes that Stephanie was making an apple tart but, for whatever
reason, made a mistake and left it too long in the oven. She thought she could rescue it, so she ended up turning it upside down and her guests loved it. I have taken inspiration from the Tatin sisters but instead of apples I’ve used apricots as there is a profusion of these little orange gems in all the markets at this time of year. They freeze well whole and I buy now for jam making in the autumn when it’s cooler in the kitchen. This is more of a cake than a tart but veritably luscious all the same!


Apricot and Lemon Thyme Cake 'Tatin'.

You will need a cake tin of 8-9” round, buttered
Preheat oven to 180c/350f/gas4

Ingredients

FOR THE APRICOTS
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55g butter, chopped
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8 – 9 fresh apricots, halved and stoned
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130g caster sugar
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80 ml water
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4/5 sprigs of lemon thyme, stripped
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1 lemon, zested and juiced
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FOR THE CAKE
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150 g unsalted butter
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150g caster sugar
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2 eggs, beaten
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100 g fl our (I used farine a gateaux)
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1 tsp baking powder (levure chimique,
little packets in baking section)
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100g ground almonds
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125 ml milk
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Method
1. Put the sugar, water and half the lemon thyme leaves in a small saucepan. Heat slowly until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and don’t stir, just whoosh the pan round a bit. Watch for the syrup to caramelise, remove from heat and add the butter. Only stir when the butter has melted. Pour into the prepared tin and put the apricots on top, cut side down and close together.
2. For the cake mixture, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fl uffy. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time and keep beating. Sift together the fl our and baking powder and start adding this to the mixture with the almonds, slowly, alternating with the milk.
3.Spoon the mixture over the apricots and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool for 10 minutes then run a knife around the edge of the cake and invert it on to a plate. Some apricots may
stick to the tin, just pick them off and plonk them on top of the cake.
4. Sprinkle the remaining lemon thyme leaves on top of the cake. You can also glaze the cake with melted lavender honey before sprinkling the thyme leaves on
5. Serve with crème fraiche or vanilla ice cream or just on its own
as a tea time treat.



Cook’s Note: Farine a gateaux has baking powder in it so if you can’t fi nd baking powder not to worry. The extra teaspoon just makes for a slightly lighter cake.
You can also use a food processor to make the cake. Cream the butter and sugar fi rst in the machine before adding all the other ingredients.