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Le goûter is the afternoon snack kids are given when they come out of school around four. In my family, we called it simply le thé, and it was the highlight of the day. Around five on weekends, somebody would invariably ask, “On fait le thé?”

Cookies or cake, usually baked by my mother, would be served. For the grownups, black tea in a round-bellied, chocolate-colored teapot, kept warm in a blue tea cosy my mother had sewn. My father sometimes wore it like a hat to make us laugh.

Le goûter should always be turned into an occasion.

And so, when friends came over with their children one recent Sunday afternoon, I baked this cake.

This cake is a family heirloom called Gâteau de Mamy. As the name implies, it is my grandmother’s recipe, which she called “Gâteau d’Ella” because it was her dear friend Ella’s recipe originally. It is anybody’s guess what Ella called it. It was also one of my father’s hands-down favorites.

It is the kind of cake that is described as an upside down cake, meaning you lay fresh fruit at the bottom of the pan, and pour the batter on top. It’s only after baking that you flip it to serve ; sort of a cake tatin. It works with many kinds of fruit: my grandmother made it most with apples, but pears, apricots, and plums are just as welcome.

The resulting cake is golden, buttery and moist, with a slightly caramelized edge. It works hard to make you want a second slice. But if you stop at one and there are leftovers, the reward is that this cake tastes even better the next day.

Photography by Céline de Cérou.

This post was first published in October 2003 and updated in January 2019.