The Infinitely-Adaptable Fruit Torte
April 29, 2019 | By Jeremy Scheck | 26 Comments
This amazing recipe has been in my family for decades. Both my grandma and my mom would make it all the time because it’s super fast to throw together for a dinner party and it’s always a crowd pleaser. The cake takes all of ten minutes (if that) to put together and always tastes incredible. You can make it as fancy or as casual as you want depending on how much care you take in arranging the fruit. Either way, the batter partially rises over the fruit in the oven, so it doesn’t really matter how careful you are. This cake is infinitely adaptable — the original New York Times recipe calls for plums, but I use whatever fruit I have in season. In the fall, I like to sub in brown sugar for white and add warm spices. To make it even easier, you can even opt to make this in a 8×8″ brownie pan and serve it straight from the dish — rustic!
Video Tutorial
Adapted from New York Times
The Infinitely-Adaptable Fruit Torte
Ingredients
- Scant 1 cup (175g) sugar*
- 1/2 cup, 1 stick (113g) butter (room temperature)
- 1 cup (130g) all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 2 eggs
- Vanilla or other extract (if you want)
- Seasonal fruit to taste
- 1 lemon (or your favorite citrus fruit)
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- Sugar for sprinkling
- Powdered sugar, for serving
Instructions
- Butter and flour an 8" or 9" springform pan, or for a rustic look opt for a 8x8" square baking dish. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until they lighten in color, about 3 minutes. You can do this with a danish dough whisk if you don't have an electric mixer.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating about a minute after each incorporation. If you're using an extract, add it here.
- Add in the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix on low until combined.
- Spread the batter into the pan.
- Arrange the fruit as you wish on top of the batter.
- Squeeze the juice of a lemon over the fruit and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
- Bake about 40-50 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Run a knife around the edges between the cake and the pan to loosen it from the sides.
- Remove the sides of the pan and let the cake cool 20 minutes on a wire wrack before transferring to a serving plate, or keeping the bottom of the pan on to serve. If you're using a 8x8" pan, don't even worry about this step, just let it cool in the pan, on the counter.
- Before serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
- The cake freezes very well after fulling cooling wrap well in plastic wrap. To defrost, bake at 300° F for about 10 mins.
Jeremy Scheck spent high school perfecting his signature cupcakes, making quiches and coffee cake by the dozen at a local bakery, and teaching cooking demonstrations at Williams-Sonoma. As a 10th grader in 2016, he began documenting his favorite recipes on a blog called The After School Bakery. In college, Jeremy learned to make 50 gallons of ice cream in the food science lab, how to prune grape vines in the teaching vineyard, the best way to milk a cow in Northern Italy, and why film photography is an art worth saving. As a sophomore in 2020, he traded blog photos for video and became a TikTok culinary sensation. Jeremy has been featured on the Today show, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, BBC Radio, People, and Access Hollywood, among others. Jeremy is a graduate of Cornell University with a double major in Spanish and Italian, and significant coursework in food science. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more about Jeremy.
I made this with apples from an orchard. It was so delicious! Everyone loved it. Very easy to make too!
I made this torte this evening and it was so good! Super quick and easy
This recipe is seriously amazing!! I ran out of white sugar so I used brown sugar on top of the apples and it was incredible.
Delicious, and super versatile! I used apples, “fall spices”, and an orange for the citrus, but I’m excited for all the other possibilities!
Love this recipe! Super great with pears.
I made this cake for my family when I was starting to get back into baking and it’s safe to say that this recipe has become a family favourite. I think it lasted all of 20 minutes before it was all eaten. Will definitely be making it again and again.
The texture is so good I made it with apples and it is so addicting but not too sweet and doesn’t make you feel gross after eating it at all! I will definitely make again with another fruit and video was so helpful too!
Thank you for sharing this recipe! My family enjoyed it so much that I had to make a second batch! ❤️
Loved the cake, but made a few iterations. I add spices to the cake itself (nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon to taste).
Also, if you are okay with it looking less pretty, I chop apple slices into thirds, so they are much smaller, and sprinkle them on top. The apples are our favorite part and this allows them to evenly cover the cake. I use 3 apples in total.
so moist and delectable. i doubled the recipe to make it into more of a cake and it turned out perfectly.
This is honestly THE best torre I’ve ever had- it’s even amazing without fruits (I couldn’t help but like the spoon). 10/10
This torte is amazing; tasty, very easy to make, with minimum clean up and so versatile! I used apple slices and brown sugar on top and the result was better than I could have imagined. For sure a staple that I’ll make from now on. Thanks Jeremy!
I made it last week with peaches and I am making it again today with apple, pear and some ginger. So good! thank you for sharing!
I made this today with strawberries and rhubarb. Loved it. Will probably be making it again next weekend.
So simple! So delicious! I made a gluten-free version of this with Bob’s Red Mill 1:1. We also made it by hand. Looking forward to a version with peaches.
Brought this recipe to the cottage in June. Strawberry season! And we had some organic blueberries. But the batter was super thick and we baked it for twice the time. The batter did not rise over the berries. It tasted delicious but had a tougher texture than we expected. When we went back to the video I noticed there was both white and brown sugar, when the print out only had a scant cup of white sugar.
Made this yesterday with blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Came out AMAZING. I made one small modification. I was worried my lemon was too juicy so I only put half the juice on top, and everyone loved it. Next time I’m going to try with cherries and the whole lemon. This is a very easy recipe and I will recommend it to anyone, especially people who aren’t very familiar with baking.
I made this in a half batch, baked it in a 6″ pan, and topped it with cherries. SO GOOD. The entire thing disappeared within 40 mins of it coming out of the oven. I also topped it with some cherries cooked down with amaretto and my mother, who ‘hates sweets’, said it was one of the best things she’s ever had. SO flipping GOOD. Going to do a peach/ginger/bourbon version next.
Just made this today with cherries! It is amazing and my family loved it too! I used lime for the citrus it’s perfect!
The first time I made this, my family asked me to make another one every single day for the next few days because they couldn’t get enough of it!! Almost everyone who’s tried it asks for the recipe right after. Love that it uses simple ingredients I already have, thank you for bringing this recipe into my life!!
This is currently in my oven! Can’t wait to have it for Rosh Hashanah.
This recipe was incredibly quick to pull together and smells incredible so far. One adaptation I made (that I hope works out!) was to mix the cinnamon sugar with the apples so that both sides get coated.
Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Does anyone know if this can be made gluten free (with rice flour, almond flour etc.)
I’m wondering this too! I was hoping to use almond flour.. google gives mixed results.
I made this with raspberries and blueberries and used dairy free butter. it was delicious and so so easy to make and will definitely be trying more variations 🙂
I have made this at least five times with different fruit each time and it has been a hit every time. Instead of squeezing the lemon and sugar on the fruit at the end, I will put the lemon sugar and fruit in a container to macerate while I make the batter. Definitely a recipe I intend to make over and over again.
Can this be made a few hours in advance and left in the fridge before baking?