Almond Honey Cake with Apricots

Ingredients

1 tsp vanilla essence
100g read-to-eat dried apricots
2 large eggs (or medium, whatever you have)
180g honey
150g peeled and finely grated sweet potato
finely grated zest of 1/2 unwaxed lemon
100g spelt or any other type of flour
100g ground almonds
2 tsps baking powder (more generous if using wholemeal)
1/4 tsp salt (if you wish)
100g whole blanched almond (keep a dozen or so for the top)

3 tbsp apricot jam or 1 tbsp of clear honey to glaze the top

20 - 23 cm tin

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.  Grease the tin.

Chop the apricots into small cubes (about 1/2 cm).

Beat the eggs, honey and vanilla essence in a mixing bowl (about two minutes).  Add the grated sweet potato and lemon zest and mix well.  Add the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, salt (if using) and mix thoroughly.  Add apricots and blanched almonds and mix gently, so as not to break the almonds.

Put the mixture into the tin.  Decorate the top with the 12 remaining almonds and place in the centre of the oven for 40 minutes.

Remove cake and while hot, brush over heated jam or honey.

Enjoy with yogurt or ice-cream.  Mummm.


PS  This receipe was adapted from 'red velvet, chocolate heartache'

Carrot & Pineapple Cake

What to do when there's going to be seven of you for tea!  Something for everyone, healthy, substantial and delicious.

This is a cross between a BBC Good Food recipe and the larder!  It doesn't matter if you don't have all the ingredients, it's good to improvise and get something a little unexpected and original.

Ingredients
300g plain flour (we used a mix of left over spelt and wholemeal self raising)
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g soft brown sugar (we used 175g of unrefined dark sugar)
4 eggs
250ml mild olive oil
1 orange, zested
1 lemon, zested (we didn't have any of either and used some chopped mixed peel)
200g carrots, finely grated
150g walnuts (we used crushed hazelnuts and pinenuts, as no walnuts in the fridge)
227g tin pineapple pieces, well drained and chopped (used a larger tin and didn't chop)

Heat the oven to 150c.  Line a 20cm, 10cm deep cake tin (or a larger tin if not so deep).  Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda together and stir in the sugar.  Put all the ingredients together in the mixer and whizzed it for a few minutes till nicely combined.  Whizz at a low speed at first, so the flour doesn't fly out of the bowl.  Spoon mixture in the tin and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  If you are using a shallower tin, the baking time will be less.

Gather round a large table with a pot of tea and enjoy.

Gateau Pithiviers

Puff pastry with a marzipan filling (to you and me!)

Ingredients

• 300g of marzipan

    or

• 50g olive oil
• 125g unrefined brown sugar
• 2 egg yolks (but will probably only need one, so do one and see how you go)
• 125g ground almonds
• few drops of almond essence
• 2 tablespoons of rum

Pastry

• 2 x 225g packets of puff pastry
• 1 egg lightly beaten (can just use the egg white from above) with teaspoon water and a pinch of salt to glaze pastry
• icing sugar

Method
Mix oil and sugar, then beat in the egg yolk, almonds, vanilla to taste and rum.  Cover and chill until firm enough to shape.  Form into a round cake 10cm across, chill again till quite firm.
Roll out half the pastry into a circle 6mm deep and 20cm across.  Roll out the remaining half into another circle 4-5mm deep and 23cm across.  Place the smaller circle on a dampened baking tray, place the almond cake in the middle and brush round the edge of the pastry with water.  Place the larger pastry circle on top.  Firmly press the top pastry circle onto the bottom pastry circle all around the base of the almond cake.
With a small knife, cut evenly spaced indentations in from the edge of the double edge and fluff up.
Place the tray in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Brush the cake with the egg glaze and cut a cartwheel design from the centre to the edge of the top surface.
Bake the cake in the centre of a preheated oven (220 degrees centigrade) for about 15 minutes or until well risen and beginning to brown.  Turn down the temperature to 200 degrees centigrade and bake for a futher 30 minutes or until the sides are golden brown, firm and crusty.  If the top is browning to much, cover losely with foil, AND finish baking to ensure the pastry is cooked and flaky throughout.

Serve warm or cold.  Serves 8-10. 

Now for my slice with a cup of tea...

Banana Bread

I baked these yesterday, in double quantities, due to an excess of bananas on the turn.

Another Nigella recipe. With rum!

Didn't have any walnuts, so used pecans, and when those ran out, sunflower and pumpkin seeds to reach the prescribed weight.

Link to recipe below:

It's a great on-the-run breakfast for the kids, and how healthy. Next batch I will be using even less sugar than for these, as far too sweet for my tooth!

Enjoy the spring, laundry outside for the first time this year!

www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=222