River Cottage’s desserts: do try them out
We had eatmaniac relatives over for tea this Sunday.
After a pleasant and eventful wedding on Saturday night, concentrating on food the following morning was quite an ordeal. So I humbly sat down at the kitchen table and started flicking through the thick River Cottage Everyday recipe book in search of an effortless but tasty recipe. And there it was staring at me: a fig, apricot and prune cake! I opened the larder in search for the ingredients required and luckily all were in stock. I must admit that my initial efforts to come to terms with the kitchen after a night of sipping that golden alcoholic beverage made from ‘fermented grain mash’ — as the Wikipedia explains — were forced by circumstances. Yet, within minutes my passion for food predominated, I put on my white apron, propped my tummy against the island and started weighing the necessary ingredients. Here, let’s follow the recipe of this moist and fruity cake.
I used spelt flour since I managed to buy this farina di farro from Italy on my last visit but you can easily substitute with wholemeal cake flour.
Chunky citrussy fruit cake
Ingredients
- 225g spelt flour or wholemeal flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch of sea salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon or ground mixed spice
- 150g dried figs
- 150g dried apricots
- 150g stoned prunes
- 85g orange marmalade
- finely grated zest of 1 orange & 1 lemon
- 200g unsalted butter, softened
- 200g light muscovado sugar
- 4 medium eggs
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Grease a 22cm springform cake tin and line with baking paper. Put flour, baking powder, salt and spice in a bowl and whisky lightly.
Cut the dried fruit into chunky pieces. Remove the hard stalk of the figs and cut them into 6, the prunes and apricots into 2 or 3 pieces. Combine them into a bowl with the loosened marmalade and stir in orange and lemon zest.
Put butter and sugar in a bowl and beat well until very light and fluffy, around 10 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour mix with each egg. Fold in remaining flour, the marmalade and dried fruit mix and stir lightly making sure not to overdo it.
Spoon mixture in the baking tin and cook in a preheated oven of 160 degrees Celsius and bake for around 1 1/2 hours. Check with a skewer, if it comes out clean then it’s ready to be served with a cup of tea or coffee!
