My daily ration of fruit
Canteen facilities are one of my fringe benefits at work. Unfortunately, I find the canteen food unappetizing. I tried to eat there a couple of times in my early days but my taste buds were never satisfied, so I gave up. Now it’s been nearly four years that I take my entitled bag of fruit instead of any other available canteen dish. Wait… don’t let your imagination take you anywhere close to the abundance of peaches, melons, plums, or figs in Summer. Don’t salivate for pears, tangerines or any other Autumn fruit. The bag of fruit never changes its contents and so it’s 2 bananas, 2 apples and 1 orange, every single day. Whether it is Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter the fruit remains unchanged.
If you can do some simple mathematical calculations you will realise that after a 5 day working week I generally end up with 10 bananas, 10 apples and 5 oranges. Oh you need to deduct 5 bananas, since I have one daily. So my weekly ration of fruit to take home is 5 bananas, 10 apples and 5 oranges. And what do I do with all this fruit surplus?
Here’s my first recipe where I use a couple of apples.
Moist apple and date cake
Ingredients:
- 450g apples, peeled, cored and cut into cubes
- 150g dates, chopped
- 225g self-raising flour
- 150g dark soft brown sugar
- 110g butter
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 100ml whole milk
- 2 tblsp honey
- 2 tsp ground cinammon
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 2 tsp baking powder
- icing sugar, for dusting
Preheat the oven to 180? Celsius. Butter a 22cm round cake tin and line with baking paper.
Beat together the butter and sugar until it turns to a creamy and fluffy consistency. Add the eggs, a little at a time, and keep beating on medium speed.
Add the flour, cinnamon, cloves, milk, honey and baking powder. Mix well with a spatula. Fold in the chopped apples and dates making sure the mixture is well blended.
Pour in the baking tin and cook in the preheated oven for 50 minutes. Check if cake is ready by inserting a skewer in the centre. If skewer comes out clean then cake is ready. Leave to cool. Dust with icing sugar and serve.
