Apricot, cranberry and pistachio loaf cake recipe
Cakes made with both yogurt and oil are among my favourites. They stay very moist, they’re transportable, they’re easy to slice. This a good solid cake – I don’t mean dull – that you can whip up easily on a Sunday afternoon and share with work colleagues on a Monday. You can use the batter as a blueprint and put in other dried fruit and flavourings.
Prep time: 20 minutes | Cooking time: 45 minutes
SERVES
Eight
INGREDIENTS
Butter, for greasing
100ml olive oil (use one that doesn’t have too strong a flavour)
150g caster sugar
175g plain yogurt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
½ tsp almond extract
140g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g ground almonds
70g soft, ready-to-eat dried apricots, chopped
70g dried cranberries
3 tbsp chopped unsalted pistachios
100g icing sugar
4 tbsp lemon juice, or as needed
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180C/170C fan*/gas mark 4. Butter a 900g loaf tin. Put a piece of baking parchment – cut to fit – in the base.
In a large bowl mix together the olive oil, sugar, yogurt, eggs, lemon zest and almond extract. Sift the flour with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, then add the almonds and a pinch of salt. Fold this into the batter along with the apricots, cranberries and 2 tbsp of the pistachios.
Scrape into the loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer pushed into the centre of the loaf comes out clean. Allow to cool a little, then run a knife between the edge of the loaf and the inside of the tin. Gently shake the cake out on to a wire cooling rack and set it the right way up, discarding the paper. Leave to cool completely.
Mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice. You want a thick icing so don’t use too much lemon juice, but add more as you need it. Leave the icing to firm up for about 15 minutes, then spread it over the top. Scatter with the rest of the pistachios.
*Diana’s conversions may differ slightly from the standard
