Читать книгу The Kitchen Diaries II - Nigel Slater - Страница 66

This is the grown-up version of the little cakes I made a week or so ago (see here). A family cake, suitable for tea or dessert, in which case it will benefit from an egg-shaped scoop of crème fraîche.

dried apricots: 250g

softened butter: 175g

golden caster sugar: 175g

eggs: 2

ground almonds: 80g

self-raising flour: 175g

ground cinnamon: a pinch

vanilla extract: a few drops

For the crumble:

plain flour: 100g

butter: 75g

demerara sugar: 2 tablespoons

jumbo oats: 3 tablespoons

flaked almonds: 2 tablespoons

a little cinnamon and extra demerara sugar for the crust, and perhaps a little icing sugar to finish

Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas 3. Line the base of a 22cm round cake tin with baking parchment.

Put the apricots in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for twenty minutes, then turn off the heat and leave them to cool a little.

Beat the butter and sugar in a food mixer for five to ten minutes, till light and pale-coffee coloured. Break the eggs, beat them gently just to mix the yolks and whites, then add them gradually to the mixture with the beater on slow. Fold in the ground almonds, flour and cinnamon, then add the vanilla extract. Scrape the mixture into the tin and smooth the surface.

Drain the apricots and add them to the top of the cake mixture. Make the crumble topping: blitz the flour and butter to crumbs in a food processor, then add the demerara sugar, oats and flaked almonds and mix lightly. Remove the food processor bowl from the stand and add a few drops of water. Shake the bowl a little – or run a fork through the mixture – so that some of the crumbs stick together like small pebbles. This will give a more interesting mix of textures. Scatter this loosely over the cake, followed by a pinch of cinnamon and a little more demerara. Bake for about an hour, checking for doneness with a skewer; it should come out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven and set aside. Dust with a little icing sugar if you wish and slice as required. The cake will keep well for three or four days.

Enough for 8