We visited our friend Adriana in Croatia, as described in this post.  She is one of the best cooks I know, the kind of cook who can just throw things together, mix them up, and the result is perfect.  I watched as she made her fruit torta without benefit of measuring cup or spoon.  It’s taken me several tries at home, but I’ve come up with a recipe that works, although it still isn’t as good as Adriana’s.

1 Cup flour

2/3 Cup sugar

dash salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

grated zest of 1/2 lemon

1 egg

1/2 Cup yogurt

2 Tbl melted butter

2 Tbl oil (safflower, corn, sunflower, not olive)

jam, your favorite flavor

fresh fruit, sliced.  Plums, apples, pears, apricots, peaches, nectarines – whatever you love. You can leave the skins on plums, apricots, nectarines.  I made this with apples and pears, and peeled them first.

1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Line a small baking pan with greased baking parchment.

2.  Mix the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl.  Grate in the lemon zest (if you haven’t  yet made the acquaintance of the micro-grater (available in Italy for a mere E 22 – good grief), I really recommend it – so easy to use and clean, and the gratings of zest, cheese or whatever are light and airy).

3. Lightly beat the egg, stir in the yourt, melted butter and oil.

4.  Add wet ingredients to dry and mix, but don’t overbeat.  Pour into prepared pan.

5.  Put dollops of jam on top of the batter.  Nest fruit slices in jam dollops.

6.  Bake for 25 minutes or so, until a toothpick put in the cake comes out clean.

Notes:  If you want the cake to be lighter you could beat the egg white separately and fold it into the batter after mixing wet and dry together.  I’m too lazy for that step.  The Captain says this doesn’t hold a candle to clafoutis, but I disagree.  He also thinks that it is improved with some liberal pre-eating dousings of rum, and I’ll admit it does no harm.  Depending on the juicyness of your fruit and your jam, this may become soggy if it sits for a day or two.  It’s not bad soggy, either, to tell you the truth.