Clue: Fruit, what's associated with cakes, very soft inside (5)
Answer: APPLE
Explanation: Definition: Fruit
**PP** (pianissimo, so "very soft") *inside* **ALE** ("what's associated with cakes") 
*"Cakes and ale" is a term meaning roughly "everything that is good in life". It was used as the title of a W Somerset Maugham novel. Maugham took the title from Shakespeare, but "cakes and ale" (in translation) also appear in an Aesop fable.