apricot and almond cake
Happy New Year and welcome to the first post of 2018. I may have taken a break from blogging but I've done plenty of baking since my last post. I think I baked at least 4 dozen mince pies and made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookie bark to share with my Brisbane friends while I was away.
I normally make plum cake at this time of year, however apricots have been plentiful and not too expensive this summer so I thought I'd make an apricot cake instead.
I made the cake on a very hot Sydney day and the smell of the cake as it baked almost distracted me from the heat coming from the kitchen. The cake came out of the oven looking golden brown and smelling delicious.
This cake is nothing complicated, just a lemon scented butter cake topped with apricots and almonds but often simple is delicious.
If you'd like to make this at home, here is the recipe for you which makes an 18 cm cake. I think you could also bake this in a 20cm cake tin but you'd just layer all the apricot slices on the top of the cake and it might need a little less time to bake. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams; I use unsalted butter and my oven is a conventional gas oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.
Apricot and almond cake
Cake Ingredients
6 apricots
125 grams (4 oz) unsalted butter
100 grams (½ cup) caster sugar
1 tsp grated lemon rind
2 eggs
3/4 cup self raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ cup (35 g) finely ground whole almonds
1/4 cup milk or plain yoghurt
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tbs flaked almonds
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease and line the base and sides of an 18 cm springform tin with baking paper.
Cut the apricots in half and remove the pits. Slice each apricot half into thirds and sprinkle with a little of the extra caster sugar. Set aside.
To make the cake, cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and mix until combined well. Sift the flour and baking powder together and stir through the ground almonds. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk to make a soft batter. You may not need to use all the milk.
Spoon half the batter into the lined tin and decoratively arrange half the apricot slices over the top of the batter sprinkling the apricots with some caster sugar. Spoon the remaining cake batter over the apricots, gently pressing the apricot slices down into the batter. Sprinkle with the rest of the caster sugar and the flaked almonds.
Bake the cake for 50 minutes – 1 hour or until the cake is golden brown and tests cooked when a skewer is inserted into it. Cool the cake in the tin for about 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
Spoon half the batter into the lined tin and decoratively arrange half the apricot slices over the top of the batter sprinkling the apricots with some caster sugar. Spoon the remaining cake batter over the apricots, gently pressing the apricot slices down into the batter. Sprinkle with the rest of the caster sugar and the flaked almonds.
Bake the cake for 50 minutes – 1 hour or until the cake is golden brown and tests cooked when a skewer is inserted into it. Cool the cake in the tin for about 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.
Bye for now,
Jillian
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