Wednesday, July 13, 2011

We Should Cocoa: Apricot, Chocolate & Ginger Cake

I had all sorts of ideas for this month's We Should Cocoa, in which apricots are the special guest ingredient. We can buy incredible Otago dried apricots here, which are bright orange, intensely tangy and about a million times tastier than the pallid Turkish imports. They're also about a million times more expensive - go figure how they manage that. Anyway, I planned to dip these local nuggets into locally made dark chocolate, but the Small Girl and I accidentally ate most of them for morning tea. Then I remembered the tins of apricots lurking in the pantry and had the sort of recipe epiphany that only food nerds understand. This dark, moist cake was the result.


Apricot, Chocolate & Ginger Cake
This is a reimagining of Nigella's Clementine Cake, which I've made so often I could probably make it in my sleep. I've replaced the cooked, pureed clementines with apricots and added a touch of ginger.

400g drained tinned apricots (annoyingly, about 1 1/2 400g tins)
6 eggs
50g cocoa
200g ground almonds
250g caster sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin. Put the drained apricots in a food processor and blitz to a fine puree. Add all the other ingredients and whiz again until well mixed. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35-45 minutes - it will be damp and sticky but a toothpick plunged in should come out cleanly. Let cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out to cool on a rack. Pin It

11 comments:

  1. This sounds decadant, moist, yummy!! Can you post a piece?? Pleeease?

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  2. What a great recipe- I love the idea of using tried, tested and loved bakes, and adapting them into something different, but just as wonderful! Nigella's clementine cake is a favourite of mine too.

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  3. Oh yum! That looks delicious.

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  4. Yummy! Apricots and chocolate! This Maenad approves.

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  5. Nigella's clementine cake has been on my to do list for a long time. Now I', stumped, which do I make first that or your apricot cake - mmmmmmm, brilliant.

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  6. Great combination.It shows it does depend which fruit u use in which kind of dough when you make cakes like this.Well done;)

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  7. Oh yeah - love the sound of this. Sticky cakes are high on my list of life's pleasures - well, quite high, anyway. You could use the rest of the can of apricots in the great recipe you posted a while back for muffins from Baobab cafe. I made some with tinned apricots quite recently. (I've used other fruits too, I promise. Muffins are high on my list of life's pleasures too - it's a long list).

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  8. This looks delicious and divine! I love the combination.

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  9. OMG! What a cake! Looks so lush and a real treat for anyone lucky enough to nab a slice ;0)
    Thanks for taking part with this months challenge.

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  10. I know the sort of cake this is adapted from and can categorically say that I would far prefer apricots to oranges so I can't wait for an opportunity to try it

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  11. I love the idea of adapting the recipe for apricots instead - I think apricots are one of those things that survives tins very well. Perhaps it's because I don't think I've ever eaten a decent fresh one!

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Hello - thanks for stopping by. If this was real life I'd make you a cup of tea and open the biscuit tin, but in lieu of those things, let's have a chat anyway...