Peach and almond cake

I like baking. Despite a not-very-sweet-tooth, the mixing and pouring and measuring is satisfying, and of course, everyone becomes your best friend when you have fresh, real cake..

Reminds me, Charne (Shar-nay) Human and the chocolate cake. I don't suppose anyone knows where Charne is now? We were little together at St Michael's in Bloemfontein. We were in the same class for six years and I often wonder where those little girls are, now. She was really Janine Oberholzer's best friend ( the best friend business has always flummoxed me - cos, if you have a best friend, then what are your other friends? Not Quite Good Enough, if you ask me). So all my friends are best friends. Or perhaps I secretly have best friends, but don't tell them, in case I'm not their best friend...the horror.

Charne came over to play a few times. My mom bought us a boxed cake mix to bake every time. Then one day Charne rang the doorbell, escorted by her mother, as usual. At the door I confessed, We don't have cake today! And Charne turned on her heel and marched back up the the garden path and through the big doors in the high white wall, and out of my playing life.

Maybe Janine Oberholzer had more consistent cake.

This cake is Nigel Slater's. I read about it on a blog last week and for the life of me I cannot remember where. The photograph made me hungry. So if this sounds familiar, please let me know. I followed the link to The Observer where Nigel Slater's recipe appears. He calls it a cake for midsummer.

I used castor (superfine) sugar and a hand whisk, as I have no electric mixer. In Brooklyn you are not allowed to have electric mixers, and in fact a churn is perferred for making your own butter from the cow on your roof.

As I say, I whisked, and everything was fine. I omitted the orange zest.

I folded in the very last handful of terrace blueberries and used dripping sweet yellow peaches from the market.

There is a lot of butter...Stick and a half.

And baked in my oven at 50' lower than he recommends because my oven only knows HOT.

This is divine. Truly. Moist, pillowy, luscious, light (in feel, certainly not in calories), with a slightly, ever so slightly sticky crust. I am smitten. There will be more.