Whole dried fruit cake

While I dislike Christmas-style fruit cakes, I very much enjoy cakes and breads that are studded with dried fruit. There are many traditional baking recipes of this type, from the Welsh bara brith to the Irish barmbrack and plenty in between. This cake doesn't follow any of the traditional recipes exactly, but does employ the tried and true method approach of soaking dried fruit in tea ahead of time. It includes some sugar, so is more cake than bread, but doesn't add any fat. There is plenty of flavour and plenty of dried fruit.

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Lentil and apricot tagine

I may be taking liberties with the term 'tagine' here, as I do not have a tagine dish and this is not a traditional North African recipe. Tagine-stew is probably a more accurate term. Whatever you call it, the dish is enjoyable and combines vegetables, lentils and dried apricots to pleasing effect.

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Festive apricot spiced flapjack

Flapjack is something I think of making quite often, but actually make infrequently. I am not sure why. You only need one mixing bowl and there is no electric beating - two things I value in a sweet recipe. It is also an economical treat and oats pack more nutritional value than flour. Whatever the reason, though, I did make flapjack recently. I am consequently pleased to share this recipe with you.

This version is given a Christmas twist by the use of mixed spice and cloves. I am not sure if mixed spice is found worldwide but it is always in my kitchen. Most versions feature allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, coriander and ginger. You can easily make your own (example proportions are here) but I prefer to buy it because I don't usually have all of the individual spices. For this recipe I used mixed spice and extra cloves, which ups the spice deliciousness.

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Apricot-almond cake

One of the unexpected points of difference, living in London compared to Australia, is that summer fruit is available all year round. It is quite bizarre, especially as often it is still quite cheap. I could buy two mangoes for £1, a punnet of apricots for £2, and a punnet of strawberries for about the same. We often had American cherries available around the core cherry season in Perth, but exorbitant prices meant it wasn't hard to resist them.

Most of the time I am still resisting the out-of-season summer fruit here. I like the anticipation and excitement of having summer produce come back into season, and eating it all year round wouldn't be the same. Plus, I'm not keen on supporting an industry that flies my fruit up from South Africa, or Turkey, or somewhere else decidedly not near Britain - and if the prices are that low, most likely someone is struggling to make a living.

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A Three Tick Saturday

Today has featured Ikea, an exciting supermarket trip, and baking. I ask you, what more can one hope for?

I'm sure that you're just as excited as I am about these mundane events small adventures in my day, and so I thought I would take us through each in turn. There is a recipe at the end, I promise!

Ikea

I love Ikea. I know it has mass-produced, neutral, and at times bland products. But the displays, the mini rooms and houses, the clever storage options, and the many, many possibilities for re-arranging and re-organising in your own home make it one of my favourite stores to visit.

Mr Bite does not feel entirely the same way. I am thus grateful that we got a visit in this morning, en route to other errands.

It wasn't a big trip. I wanted new bowls...

And some more glass storage jars (which, when empty, are very hard to photograph!)...

I also wanted to look at options for shelves or racks for our kitchen, on which to place said glass jars and/or spice jars. Our pantry is just not big enough.

I have gathered ideas and now need to come up with some specifics, before I make the associated purchases. I foresee some fun ahead with this task!

Supermarket excitement

In truth, supermarket visits are almost always a little exciting (to me at any rate). This one was particularly so, because we visited a store we rarely go to. It's a Super Progressive IGA, instead of the Coles or Woolworths that we usually frequent, and it stocks a lot of products that Coles and Woolworths don't.

For example, I found my favourite Ryvita variety...

And something that I have never before seen in Australia...

I know it is possible in theory to make pumpkin pie or pumpkin desserts with proper, steamed and mashed pumpkin. The thing is, though, that I never do. I am thus very, very excited about this tin.

We also managed to buy quite a lot of other semi-rare (to us) products, which resulted in our final bill being twice what it usually is. I've now decided that we'll have to ration these sorts of supermarket trips to a few times a year.

Baking

It probably goes without saying that this is always (or almost always) fun. I was particularly impressed with today's product though, because it seemed rather too good to be true. One of the recipes I copied down when at my parent's was an apricot and sultana loaf from Rosemary Stanton's Healthy Cooking cookbook.

It has no added fat, no added sugar, and is a loaf rather than 'true' bread (it's not yeasted). It seemed too simple to be possible, but it actually worked incredibly well.

Other than the fruit, the ingredients are self-raising wholemeal flour, baking soda, and soy milk:

Apricot and sultana loaf

Adapted from Rosemary Stanton's Healthy Cooking

Makes 1 loaf tin, 10 - 20 slices (10 large, 20 small)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup currants
• 3/4 cup sultanas
• 1 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
• 1 1/2 cups soy milk
• 1 3/4 cups wholemeal self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking soda

Instructions:

1. Soak the dried fruit in the soy milk for approximately 1 hour.
2. When the fruit has soaked sufficiently, preheat the oven to 180'C and grease or line a loaf tin.
3. Combine the fruit / soy milk mixture with the flour and baking soda; stir to combine.
4. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Wait until cool before slicing.

The loaf is dense without being too filling, and just sweet enough from the dried fruit. The fruit also keeps the centre moist, which I was concerned about given the lack of oil or oil substitute. I think I shall be making it again, and probably with different dried fruit ingredients too.

For a small / half slice

Do you share my enjoyment of Ikea, supermarkets, or fruit loaf? Or have you had an enjoyable Saturday yourself?

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