Apricots
My tiny patio fruit trees are covered in little fat fruit nodules–especially the apricot. I wonder if I’m supposed to thin them, or will they do it themselves? I’ve got a ‘grow your own fruit, you naïve, gullible fool’ book around here somewhere. Meanwhile, I need a night off.* And we haven’t had a recipe in forever. So let’s have:
Apricot Gingerbread
½ c sugar
½ c butter
½ c blackstrap molasses
1 egg lightly beaten
3 c flour**
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp (ground) ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cloves
1 c orange juice
½ tsp orange essence
½ c chopped candied ginger
1 ½ c chopped dried apricots
Cream butter and sugar. Add molasses, then egg. Beat thoroughly. Add the orange essence to the orange juice, and add alternately with flour mixed with baking powder, etc. Beat till it goes all smooth and creamy.*** (You can use your electric mixer if you want.) Stir in candied ginger and apricots. Pour into buttered 13 x 9″ pan; 350°F about 35 minutes, till done: you know, toothpick in the middle comes out clean, sides of the cake just beginning to pull away from the dish.
* * *
* I need to make an official habit of nights off. Some day when I say I Must Spend Less Time on the Blog I’m going to have to mean it. Why can’t I learn to write short?
** Mostly white, but I usually use something like 2 c unbleached white, ¾ c wholemeal spelt, and ¼ c either barley flour or fine oatmeal. I’ve told you before about using a little barley or oatmeal for background depth of flavour^.
^ Blah blah blah blah blah. What is this, a wine tasting?
*** I don’t have to tell you (again) to adjust as you see fit, do I? I was wondering why Betty Crocker and Fanny Farmer never tell you to adjust if your batter looks too runny/ too dry. And it’s probably because Betty and Fanny are expecting you to buy standard white flour at the standard white shop, instead of cruising the countryside and the internet for small cranky independent whole grain millers–whose unbleached white is creamy beige and faintly freckled–let alone wholemeal and stuff like oatmeal and barley.
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