Pudding Baking

David Atherton’s Peaches on Ginger Dessert

David Atherton's cookbook Good to Eat is crammed full of healthy, taste-amazing recipes. "This dessert resembles a baked cheesecake, but the moussey, light filling is made from a can of peaches and ground almonds with no cream cheese or cream in sight. It is so light that it sinks in the middle when baking, but don’t worry, it is meant to be like this, and this is the perfect cavity for the yogurt and fruit topping," David says.

25 minutes prep, 1 hour cook

Serves 8

Ingredients

For the crust:

70g plain flour

30g wholemeal plain flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp baking powder

40g soft brown sugar

75g unsalted butter

For the filling:

4 large eggs

80g caster sugar

1 x 375g can peaches in juice (drained weight 330g)

60g runny honey

170g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

For the topping:

150g Greek yogurt

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

20g flaked almonds, plus extra for sprinkling

200g honey

4 cloves

2 ripe peaches, stoned and thinly sliced

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C/ Fan 150°C/Gas 3. Prepare a 20cm springform tin with baking parchment.

Rub the flours, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder and sugar with the butter until it forms breadcrumbs. Press into the base of the tin and bake for 20 minutes, then leave to cool in the tin.

Turn the oven temperature up to 190°C/ Fan 170°C/Gas 5.

Whisk the eggs and the sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and creamy and doubled in volume. In a blender whizz the canned peaches with the honey until smooth. In a mixing bowl, mix the ground almonds and baking powder with the peach mixture. Pour in half the egg mixture and fold, followed by the second half, then fold until just incorporated. Pour over the biscuit base and smooth the top.

Bake for 25 minutes, then add a foil sheet or baking parchment on top of the tin, and bake for a further 15 minutes.

While it bakes, make the topping. Mix the yogurt together with the lemon zest and juice. Gently toast the almonds in a dry frying pan on a medium heat. As soon as they start to brown, tip them onto a plate. Put the honey in a small saucepan with the cloves and simmer for about 8 minutes until the honey turns a deep golden amber. Remove the cloves.

Slice the ginger dessert and serve with a dollop of the yogurt, some peach slices, a drizzle of the burnt honey and a sprinkling of the almonds.