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.

Marzipan cookies

These came about because I had a sort out in my baking cupboard and found some marzipan that needed using up.

 I remembered eating some biscuits in France that had a layer of marzipan in the middle, and they were delicious, so thought I'd have a try and make something similar. I used my usual cookie recipe, rolled out the dough and added a chunk of marzipan to the circles I'd cut out. To give an extra flavour I added a few bits of broken dark chocolate before putting another circle on top and sealing them together. I piped some white chocolate over when they were cold.

I made 12 complete cookies.

150g butter

150g light brown sugar

1 egg
250g flour

100g marzipan

100g dark chocolate, broken in small pieces

100g white chocolate

Preheat oven 190C/gas5

Line a baking sheet with some parchment paper.

Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer, then beat in the egg. Fold in the

flour.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1/2 cm thick, then using a 8 cm cutter, cut out 24 circles.

Put 12 circles on the baking sheet and add a chunk of marzipan and a few pieces of dark chocolate, then cover with another circle. Press the edges together so that the filling doesn't leak out. Bake for about 12 mins, then cool on a wire rack.

Melt the white chocolate carefully and spoon into an icing bag. Pipe lines on the cold cookies.

I loved them - loved the texture and the flavours of the marzipan and chocolate. The white chocolate decoration added a bit more glamour.

A question - are they cookies or biscuits - I don't really know what the difference is?

German apple cake

I love apple cakes, and this is a recipe from my lovely German dil. She makes really delicious cakes; when she married our son, she, her Mother and Grandmother made over 40 cakes to have with a glass of wine or beer after the ceremony. The variety was awe inspiring. I have to say that she's a qualified pastry chef and now works for Suffolk school dinners!

This is an unusual apple cake as it has 3 layers. It's not the prettiest of cakes, but the flavour's really good. It's not a huge cake, but it's nice eaten warm as a pudd. or cold as a cake with your afternoon cuppa.

100g butter
100g caster sugar
200g sr flour
1 large egg
pinch salt
500g cooking apples
55g sultanas
1 tspn cinnamon
55g demerara sugar

Preheat oven 190C/gas 5.
Grease and line a 20cm springform tin.

Melt butter in microwave or pan. Remove and add the sugar, flour, egg and salt. Mix to a stiff dough.
Put 2/3 of the dough in the bootom of the cake tin, pressing it to cover the base.
Mix the rest of the ingredients together and then put on top of the dough.
Put the 1/3 of the dough on top in pieces, tearing it and gently pressing it down. It won't cover the apple mixture.
Bake for about 50 mins till golden, but cover with some foil for about the last 10 mins to stop the top burning.
Cool in the tin then put on a plate and serve warm or cold.

It's not burnt! I used dark demerara sugar mixed with the cinnamon and apple.

I love the apple layer with the sultanas, sugar and cinnamon. It's a nice mixture of textures - the cake bottom, the apple layer and the almost cobbler topping.