Firstly, I
am so pleased to say that at long last I have a mixer, it arrived on Friday and
I wasn’t home. The lovely driver said
or rather I think he said, I could call the office and they would deliver some
time next week – I was far too excited for that and I persuaded the nice English
speaking lady to let me collect it and now my beautiful shiny new Kitchen Aid
has arrived to its new home – it’s a little sad, but I keep popping into the
kitchen and smiling, it just makes me feel happy plus I just love the
colour. Charlie is completely in love with the
machine and strokes it lovingly, I feel like Im turning into that horrible character in Lord of the Rings who has the
ring and calls it his precious – I must share the Kitchen Aid I know but…….
Anyway back
to the cake its American Apple and Apricot Cake this week. I position myself on my kitchen chair with
Mary’s Baking Bible in front of me and begin directing Charlie. She is confident and chatty today and
informs me she is getting “really good at this” Im a little concerned that I
might have to not only grease the tin, but also her head to get it out of the
kitchen – harsh I know, but come on, were only on page 50 and there are 385 in
the book – I think we have a little way to go yet.
This is an
All in One recipe – hoorah Mary at last we can do that! So all the dry ingredients
go into the mixer and then she melts the butter in the microwave then adds
that. The Apples and Apricots are added
once everything else is mixed together.
The batter is quite thick and sticky, but transfers easily into
Charlottes new deep 8 inch tin. The
recipe says that it will take 1 – 11/2 hours to bake. It was only afterwards that I realised that I forgot to sprinkle
the sliced almonds on the top before it was baked.
The house
smelt incredible!
It only
took just an hour to cook, this is a lesson we are learning quickly - either my
oven is hotter than it says it is or Mary’s oven needs a service!
The recipe says that this cake is good with
coffee or as a dessert and its best served warm – so warm it was after dinner
and it was …… wonderful. The almond
cake is delicious plus the apples keep it moist and the apricots give it little
sweet accents. I think that if I had
remembered the almonds then they would of given a nice crunch on the top but
unfortunately we didn’t. –Everyone
enjoyed it, I even broke my diet and tried a bit – Im so pleased I did.
Its Coffee and Walnut cake next week – I guess
Harry will be receiving another cake!
