Ginger and Apricot Loaf

Another one of my favourite loaf cake recipes. This one uses stem ginger to give a better flavour than ground ginger. I've found a similar shop to the much missed [by me anyway] Julian Graves stores, so I stocked up on walnuts and dried fruit, including apricots. This such a quick loaf to make, and you can chose whether to ice it or not. I think the recipe is a WI one, as my mil gave it to me, and she usually used their recipes.

Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 900g loaf tin.

In a large bowl put 115g wholemeal flour, 115g plain flour, 11/2tspns baking powder, 150g soft brown sugar, 115g soft butter, pinch salt, 2 beaten eggs, zest of a lemon and 2 tbspns of milk - beat it all together with an electric hand mixer. Stir in 175g chopped dried apricots [the no soak ones] and add 3 pieces of stem ginger chopped finely together with 4 tbspns of the ginger syrup. Finely slice a 4th piece of ginger and keep for the top.
Spoon mixture into the tin, level, then arrange the 4th piece of ginger down the centre of the top.
Bake for about 1 hr or so. Mine took 75 mins, and I had to cover the top with some foil, as it was getting too brown.
Leave in tin for about 15mins then turn onto a wire rack.
I decorated the top when cool with some lemon glace icing [I used 115g icing sugar with about 1 tbspn of lemon juice].

A nice treat with a cuppa  - a lovely subtle ginger flavour and a bite from the apricots. A good combination of flavours.

Apricot and Ginger Loaf

I haven't made a loaf cake for a while, but having a sort out of my baking cupboard, I found some wholemeal flour, stem ginger and a bag of dried apricots that needed using. Thought they'd make a good combination in a loaf cake. I find using just wholemeal flour make cakes too heavy for my taste, so I always do half wholemeal and half white.

It's a quick loaf to make - preheat your oven to 180C/gas 4 and grease a 900g loaf tin.

Put 115g wholemeal flour and 115g plain flour in a bowl with 11/2 tspns of baking powder. Add 150g soft light brown sugar, 115g butter, 2 eggs, zest of a lemon and 2 tbspn of milk. Beat together using an electric mixer for about 2 mins then fold in 175g of dried apricots [not the ones you have to soak] which have been chopped. Finely chop 3 pieces of stem ginger and you need 4 tbspns of the syrup from the jar, Add these to the cake mixture. Thinly slice 1 more piece of stem ginger. Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and level the top, then arrange the slices of ginger down the centre.

Bake for 1-1/4 hours and cover the top with some foil if it's getting too brown.

Leave the loaf to cool in the tin for a while then put it on a wire rack.

I decided to ice it with some glace icing using 115g icing sugar and 1 tbspn of lemon juice.

I think the stem ginger gives the loaf a much better flavour than ground ginger. The apricots worked well with the ginger, and I think the lemon icing gave it the finishing touch. 

Apple, pecan and apricot loaf cake

We love tea breads and loaf cakes, or anything with fruit in really. I found this recipe in my cuttings folder, and I think it originally came from 'Woman's Weekly' magazine a few years ago. I adapted it to suit our tastes, as the original recipe used prunes, apple and pecans. It also used wholemeal flour, but I'd run out, so used white. I added some cinnamon, which is always good with apples, imho, and I didn't toast the pecans, as suggested.
So here's my adapted recipe:

1 apple [about 175g - I used a granny Smith with its skin on]
175g dried apricots
175g pecans
11/2 tspns baking powder
220g plain flour
110g butter or margarine
175g light demerara sugar
2 beaten eggs
3 tbspn milk

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease and bottom line a 900g loaf tin.

Add the baking powder and cinnamon to the flour and sieve into a bowl. Then add the other ingredients, except the fruit and nuts, and beat together with an electric hand mixer. If the mixture seems to thick and doesn't drop off the beaters, add a bit more milk.

Spoon into the tin and bake for about 1 hr and 15mins. I had to cover the top towards the end, as the top was browning and the middle wasn't cooked. Leave to cool in the tin.

                      This is the mixture before being stirred together - rather a lot of fruit and nuts!

It's a very moist cake, and breaks easily. I think there's too much fruit, so would use less if I made it again. It does, however, have a great flavour. The original recipe said to leave the apricots whole, but this seemed a silly idea, so I chopped them in quarters, and even then they were fairly big chunks.

Fried egg biscuits - a fun bake

On Sunday May 19th it's World Baking Day and there's some great baking recipes to try. Just found it by chance.
http://worldbakingday.com/#/en-gb/recipes

I've mentioned before, that from time to time I bake with one of my grandsons. For some reason he really loves apricots, and he wanted to bake something using them. In a very old 'Blue Peter' activity book, from when my children were young, we found a recipe for these biscuits. They're quirky and T. loved making them, as they had apricots on them.

We made 12 biscuits, and T went home with the recipe [and most of the biscuits!] to make them with his Mum.

150g plain flour
7g [about 21/2 tspns] vanilla sugar or 1 packet [or you could use caster sugar and some vanilla extract]
pinch salt
150g cornflour
150g butter - cold and cut into pieces
250g tin of apricots in syrup
75g icing sugar
1 tspn or so of lemon juice

Preheat oven 200C/gas6
Grease a baking tray.

Mix the 2 flours, vanilla sugar and salt together in a bowl and rub in the butter.
Knead together to make a nice smooth dough.
Leave this in the fridge for 1 hour.
Roll out the pastry and cut out circles with a cutter. Press the centre of the biscuit gently then add an apricot half [drained].
Put onto the baking tray and bake for 25 mins, then leave to cool.
Make up the icing by beating the icing sugar with enough lemon juice to make a thickish icing.
Spread the icing around the 'fried eggs'.

 Great fun to make, and the biscuits themselves aren't sweet, which contrasts with the icing and the sweet apricot.

Apricot-banana-cranberry teabread

This addition to my teabread recipe collection comes from a book I bought in a charity shop called 'The complete book of baking'. It really is a very quick bread to make, and is very moist. Another recipe with oil instead of butter must be good!

175g plain flour
11/2 tspn baking powder
1/2tspn grated nutmeg
6-g rolled oats
250g light brown sugar
60g dried cranberries
60g dried apricots
2 eggs
120ml sunflower oil
1 tspn vanilla essence
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven 180C/gas 4
Grease a 900g loaf tin

Put flour, baking powder and nutmeg in a bowl and add the oats, sugar and dried fruit. Mix together till blended. make a well in the middle.
In another bowl beat the bananas, eggs, oil and vanilla essence together with an electric mixer.
Add this to the flour mixture and combine together.
Pour into the tin and bake for 45mins- an hour till well risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack.
Dust the top with icing sugar if you want.

I served this to friends with a compote of cranberries and apricots, which really accentuated the flavours in the teabread. Have the compote recipe if anyone wants it.

There's an awful lot of sugar in the recipe so I'm going to play around with using something else for sweetness, and also going to try just reducing the amount of sugar and see if the recipe still works. I love the combination of flavours.

Apricot Kolaches

I've been watching the Hairy Bikers "Bakeation' and have enjoyed seeing the interesting breads and pastries which are made in Europe. I decided that I wanted to try one out, and found this recipe for 'Kolaches' in a cookery book about world cooking. They're Czech pastries and are often eaten at festivals such as Easter, so it's an appropriate time to make them.
In the book there's a choice of 2 fillings for the buns - apricot or cheese. I decided on apricot, as I'd just bought some last weekend.
The recipe uses a breadmaker, but they could, of course, be made by hand. I used my breadmaker the other day to make the dough for Hot Cross Buns, and this recipe has some of the same ingredients.

It makes 16 pastries.

1 egg
120ml milk
60g butter
60g sugar
1/2 tspn salt
250g strong white flour
packet quick yeast
icing sugar to dust

Beat the egg and milk together and pour into the breadmaker pan. Add the sugar, butter and salt and then the flour. Make a well in the flour and add the yeast. Set the dough programme on the breadmaker.

Grease 2 baking trays.
When the dough is ready, take out of the pan and knock down. Cut into 16 equal pieces, roll each piece into a ball and flatten a bit. Put the dough balls about 21/2 cms apart on a baking tray, cover with cling film and leave to rise for about 45 mins.

Filling:
60g dried apricots
90g sugar
2 tbspn apricot or orange liqueur or orange juice

Put the apricots in a pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Simmer till the water disappears, then add the sugar and liqueur or orange juice and heat till the sugar is dissolved [about a minute]. Cool then blitz in a food processor.
Preheat oven to 190C/gas 5.
Gently use a finger to make a dent in the top of each dough ball - don't deflate it! Then gently widen the hole with your finger and add a tbspn of the apricot puree.
Bake for 15-20 mins till golden. Sprinkle with icing sugar while warm.

The dough has a soft texture. I think this is a very versatile recipe as you could use many different fruits or nuts or chocolate as the filling - the list is endless. I'm going to make the cheese ones next.