Line the cake tin with parchment paper; preheat the oven to 180°C. Wash the apricots, remove the stone and slice them. In a saucepan add apricots, sugar, ½ tbsp butter and star anise.

Make the caramel with occasional stir till bubbles form on the surface and apricots are completely coated in the syrup. This will take 5-8 minutes. Remove the star anise, line the apricots in the cake tin as per the design you wish on the cake top and pour in the caramel.

I did in circular motion (requires a lot of patience). Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs gradually to a fluffy mix

Add vanilla essence; sift flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder and baking powder together in the egg mix

Fold together and add milk if required to loosen the batter. Transfer to the apricots lined cake tin and layer the batter smoothly. Bake for 25- 30 min or till the skewer comes out clean.

Allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Get the cake out on the serving plate carefully as the juice and caramel would spill out once inverted on the plate. Make sure the serving plate is the edged one to contain the caramel and juice