THIS SUMMER has been pretty warm so far and so I have been enjoying eating dinner outside with my family at our new house quite a lot!

The summer weather always makes me cook and bake less, probably because the oven heats the whole house up, but I still like to bake occasionally to have cake with tea or to be enjoyed after a meal!

Last Sunday after a meal out at one of our favourite restaurants Jake and I shared a Peach Melba dessert, something new to me, and I really enjoyed it.

I started thinking about combining the flavours into a cake, rather than just a dessert and I think the results worked really well. I thought I’d share the recipe with you as my last cake before I retire temporarily to enjoy my maternity leave and our new baby!

Peach Melba is a mixture of lovely flavours, ripe peaches, raspberries and ice cream. They work perfectly together, the slight sharpness of the raspberries perking up the sweetness of a peach that has been cooked in sugar syrup.

I thought it seemed like the perfect addition to jazz up a sponge cake for a summer dessert.

I love baked peaches, nectarines and apricots: the flavour of the fruit becomes so intense and the texture is so soft! The chunks of raspberry cut through the sweetness nicely to give the perfectly balanced cake.

History-wise, the Peach Melba dessert is one of the most famous and beloved desserts in the world. This creamy and cool dish, a simple and classic preparation of vanilla ice cream, sugary peaches, and raspberry sauce has graced restaurant menus for decades.

While many people are familiar with this delectable dessert, few know the story behind the dish.

It all starts with famed French chef Auguste Escoffier and his friendship with an Australian opera singer named Nellie Melba.

In 1892, operatic soprano Nellie was performing in Wagner’s opera Lohengrin at Covent Garden. The Duke of Orleans gave a dinner party to celebrate her triumph. For the occasion, Escoffier created a new dessert, and to display it, he used an ice sculpture of a swan, which is featured in the opera.

The swan carried peaches which rested on a bed of vanilla ice cream and which were topped with spun sugar.

In 1900 Escoffier created a new version of the dessert. For the occasion of the opening of the Carlton Hotel where he was head chef, Escoffier omitted the ice swan and topped the peaches with raspberry purée.

Other versions substitute pears, apricots, or strawberries instead of peaches and/or use raspberry sauce or melted redcurrant jelly instead of raspberry purée.

However the original dish used simple ingredients of tender and very ripe peaches, vanilla ice cream, and a purée of sugared raspberry. Few summer desserts manage to marry flavours and colours so perfectly yet so gaudily!

However I suppose any dessert or cake made with fruit that is such a beautiful colour is going to be good. So why not try this twist on a classic dessert?

Tart raspberries and sweet yellow peaches are perfectly ripe this time of year and combined in this light, moist cake so I think all the family will enjoy it as much as we did!