The hungry girls Almond, Apricot spice cake... retold by ME yes me and my little fingers...

Hello Poppits,

How's your day been ??

Mines been pretty good, even though it's only wednesday! I had a lovely day today with catching up with my mothers group in the afternoon and then ... I resigned from my job !! It feels so good to know that I don't have a deadline with Edie. YAY

Now onto the cooking part...

A few weeks ago ( oh k well maybe it was more like 6 weeks) I made this cake..It's from The Hungry girls blog, they have lots of super yummy recipes, all with yummy looking photos unlike my dodge ones.

As you may have guessed I love cooking and will do at a drop of a hat and this cake was no exception. We where having a outside movie night( you have to watch "My family and other animals" a truly fabby movie!) and I thought this cake may just do the trick and it sure did.

This cake was lots of fun to make because of all the little jobs that there are to make the cake, so I roped in mum and Romi to help me cook it!

  This cake is lovely and moist with a slightly bitter but complex taste. I served it up with custard ( yes the photo looks like poo but it tastes so good) the apricots were a bit under ripe so I think this recipe would work better with ripe ones.

All in all this cake is scrummy yummy and I would make this again quick smart !

Recipe (From The Hungry Girls)

150 g butter

60 g (1/3 cup) brown sugar

about 500 g apricots (reserve 8 stones)

3 tablespoons golden syrup

125 ml water

6 cardamom pods

1 teaspoon ground ginger

½ nutmeg, grated (or ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg)

100 g ground roasted almonds (or almond meal)

85 g self-raising flour

Line a 20 cm cake tin with baking paper and preheat the oven to 180°C. Melt the butter in a saucepan and drizzle 1 tablespoon over the base of the tin. Sprinkle with a few pinches of the brown sugar. Open the apricots and remove the stones, and lay the halves over the base of the tin open-side up. Squish as many into the tin as possible.

Add the remaining brown sugar to the saucepan of melted butter, along with the golden syrup and water.

Crack open the reserved apricot stones in a mortar to reveal the kernels inside. Crush the kernels to a paste. Stir into the butter mixture. Crack the cardamom pods, discard the husks and grind the seeds to a powder. Stir into the butter mixture along with the ginger and nutmeg. Stir in the ground almonds and flour until smooth. Pour the batter over the apricots and bake for 30–40 minutes, until golden and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool before turning onto a plate.

TTFN,

Lili xx