Coffee and cake

Coffee and cake this morning, with friends, went down very well. I really appreciate times like this where we can sit and relax and chatter to friends, they are very welcome moments.

The cake was a combination of a few recipes as I didn’t have all the ingredients for one. It was very tasty and I will definitely do a similar one again. It’s such a simple recipe and doesn’t have any fat in it. For a Gluten Free version just use GF flour. And for a vegan option use an egg substitute, easy.

Spiced apple tea loaF

Start by lining a 1kg loaf tin, then make your fruit mix.

fruit mix
You need 460g of mixed fruit.
I used a combination of chopped apple, plums (destoned and cut in half) and sultanas.
For the dried fruit in the mix, make up 300ml of strong black tea (I used Earl grey, but you can use anything), add 1/2 teaspoon of spice (I used cinnamon), and soak your dried fruit for a minimum of 2 hours in the tea/spice mixture.

Once the 2 hours have passed, mix together, in a bowl:
140g Light brown sugar
250g Self raising flour

Add all the fruit to the bowl, reserving the tea at this stage. Ensure that the tea mixture is still 300 ml, if not make it up with more tea. Then beat one egg into the tea mixture. Once beaten, add this to the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix thoroughly.

Spoon into the tin and bake for about 90 minutes at 150°c until cooked (I left mine in a little bit longer). You can check whether it’s cooked by pushing a skewer into the centre of the cake, if it comes out wet it still needs a bit more cooking. If the top is already quite brown, cover it to prevent it burning.

You can decorate the cake if you like, I served mine with a drizzle of icing. Yummy.