When Antonio Banderas is on set and you're not
A recipe for Apricot and Almond Cake
Hanging around for hours last week waiting to be called on the set of Antonio Banderas ‘ latest film, I had ample time to stare at the walls and churn thoughts. I may only have been an Extra, a title upgraded to Support Artist (the acting equivalent of a Comfort Pet?) but please don't let that prevent you from putting a request for my autograph in Comments. I have been practising some calligraphy flourishes and I'm pretty impressed myself.
Some of that long-drawn-out time I spent mentally designing the pink heart-shaped pool that would come with the inevitable Hollywood call that will doubtless follow on from my quite remarkable performance. (On the other hand, I can tell you Antonio - we’re now thick as thieves - will never make it as a dishwasher. I said to him, “Antonio,” I said. “You’ll never make it as a dishwasher. You’ve been soaping that teacup for five takes now, and it’s still filthy.”)
Anyhow, forget job opportunities. Mostly I reflected that if you’re information gathering, you could probably divide people into two groups - those that hold their cards close to their chests and those who chuck them all over the table. Because the night before Day One of the shoot, I had been to a fabulous party where some of the guests had provided some of the dishes. One of these was probably the best cake I’ve eaten in a very long time. It was a kind of upgrade of the classic Lemon Drizzle Cake, citrus-y, moist, almost clammy with almonds, and stuffed with charred and collapsed apricots. Can you imagine just how delicious? I sidled up to the person responsible, to probe the source of the recipe. Oh dear, she wished she could remember…wasn’t it silly of her?…possibly it had come from some newspaper clipping?…and besides, the recipe was so deeply embedded in memory it came out different every time, making it pretty much impossible to pin down its ingredients or their quantities. And so on. Cut!
It’s an understandable response. You really don’t want people to come and plunder your culinary treasures to replicate them and by their new ubiquity diminish the splendour of their reception. (Unless you’re earning a living on Instagram and riffing endlessly on dumplings.) And it’s a good deal better behaviour than that of some of the chefs whose recipes we bought for publication on a food magazine I once worked on. They would deliberately omit a key ingredient because they didn’t really want readers to be reproducing their menus at home. They wanted them to come out to their pricey restaurants to pay for them there. One of them, a globally celebrated TV chef very familiar to you, had the temerity to leave the flour out of his béchamel sauce. I mean, come on!
Those people who are openly enthusiastic about giving you their recipes have usually made something whose ingredients you’d find pretty easy to guess, a dish to throw together without instructions.
The hours between takes were spent on my phone rearranging key words to unearth the recipe, sapping its battery. To no avail. I mentioned the dilemma to another bored extra - sorry, Support Artist - with far better Search skills than me. Within seconds, presided over by the glories of St Cuthbert’s church in which the dozens of us extras slumped with our changes of winter wear and spring wear, and our candies, and cookies, and sandwiches, and crossword puzzles, and downloaded movies,
she had come up with what I’m sure must be it and suspect comes from Ottolenghi. At any rate, I was excited enough, even after two ten-hour days of waiting for my delirious interludes of drying up Antonio’s hopeless crockery action, to come home and bake the cake…about 5 minutes too long.
I don’t think you need to stick to apricots. I imagine nectarines, greengages, peaches - raspberries, even, or any other fruit that won’t release too much juice - would work.
There’s a topping which you make first:
60g /2¾ oz unsalted butter
100g/3½ oz caster sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I hate cinnamon but wasn’t offended by it)
⅛ teaspoon salt - otherwise known as A Good Pinch
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
In a small pan, melt the butter then add the sugar, cinnamon and salt. Stir to combine and remove from the heat. Allow to cool for 5 minutes and carefully stir in the beaten eggs. Set aside.
Then the cake:
85g/3 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g/5¼ oz caster sugar (I now only buy golden for its better flavour)
2 large eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
½ teaspoon nutmeg
220g/7¾ oz self-raising flour
⅛ teaspoon salt
160g/5½ oz sour cream
35g/1¼ oz ground almonds
8 apricots, halved and stoned
Preheat oven to 195C/380F.
Butter and line a 23cm/9ins round springform tin with buttered parchment paper.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time. Add the lemon zest, vanilla, nutmeg and almond extract and beat to combine.
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Beating slowly, add a third of the flour to the creamed mix, then half the sour cream, alternating so that you end with the flour. I didn’t properly read the recipe and did all the flour part in one go before realising my mistake. Adding the sour cream at the end didn’t seem to affect the finished cake, though I recommend you follow the recipe better than I did. Mix to combine and then scrape the batter into the cake tin. Smooth with a spatula and sprinkle the ground almonds over the top. Lightly press the apricot halves on top, cut side down. Spoon the cinnamon topping over all.
Bake for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean (the topping might be sticky). Not only did I use a 20cm/7¾ins tin because I don’t own a 23cm/9ins, but I baked it for 50 minutes only and the toothpick, not skewer, came out dry. So keep checking. Watch it carefully towards the end of cooking as it can go from under- to over- cooked fast. Cool in tin for 15 minutes before removing. Serve with cream or ice-cream.
And in a year or so, keep an eye out for Rose’s Baby. Did I tell you Antonio Banderas and I are in it?
“…and by their new ubiquity…” is perhaps the most splendid sentence I have read in a coon’s age.
I want that cake in my face.