The Trick To Keeping Fruit On Top Of A Cake While It Bakes
Adding mix-ins to the batter is a great way to upgrade any baked good. Coconut is a tasty addition to chocolate chip cookies, and chopped nuts always make banana bread taste even better. When it comes to adding fruit to cake, however, there are some pitfalls to be aware of. Bake a peach pie with fresh peach slices, for example, and the fruit can easily sink to the bottom in the process. Upside-down cake is tasty, but sometimes you want the fruit to stay suspended on top without having to invert the cake after baking.
According to celebrity chef Mary Berry, fruit is prone to sinking simply because it's heavier than the batter. This is especially true for larger chunks of fruit, or ones covered in syrup, like canned peaches or glace cherries. As Berry explained in her blog, the excess moisture makes the fruit extra slippery, and, combined with its natural weight, this will cause it to gradually sink to the bottom of the pan. So how do you prevent this from happening?
Reserve some flour for your fruit
If you plan to bake your cake with fruit on top, pastry chef and food influencer @austrianwithwuff says, you'll need a bit of extra flour to effectively do so. Per her instructions, just before adding your fruit of choice onto your cake, dip the bottoms into flour. This will allow them to adhere to the surface of the batter, keeping them in place while the cake bakes.
For best results, Madhurum's Eggless Cooking shares, make sure the fruit is cut into smaller pieces to allow for better weight distribution. And if you're using dried or candied fruits instead of fresh ones, make sure to fully coat them in flour rather than just dusting the bottoms.
The flour alone should be enough to prevent the fruit from falling to the bottom of the pan, but if your cake batter is particularly runny, Mary Berry suggests mixing ground almonds into it. This will thicken it up, allowing the fruit to stay put.