Glad to find this recipe that I thought I had lost it. Anyway, I remembered I watched Silvia Colloca cooking TV program years ago in 2014. I always though cake is made using butter. I had learnt something new.

This cake made by Silvia had certainly caught my interest to try it. She had use apricot and almond flakes. I as usual like to make it my own with my own ingredients. I like the idea of using oil as butter sometimes takes a long time to melt especially in wintertime.

This time I use apricot with craisins, skim milk instead of full cream milk, frangelico, cream of tatar to get rid of the last few amounts, bought apricot on sale, and added chocolate powder. I also use a round springform instead of loaf pan. It’s not presentable but I cared for is the taste: delicious and comforting. Let’s bake!!!

Ingredients

170 g caster sugar
230 ml skim milk
finely grated zest of 1 orange
1tsp vanilla essence
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
3 Tsp frangelico (optional; see Note)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1⅓ cups (200 g) self-raising flour
1/2 Tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/8 Tsp cream of tartar
8 small apricots, cut in quarters
125g craisins dried
chocolate powder, for sprinkling

Method

Preheat your oven to 160°C fan-forced. Grease and flour a 23 cm round cake tin line it with baking paper.

Place the sugar, milk and orange zest in a medium saucepan over low heat and cook for 3–4 minutes, stirring regularly, until the sugar has dissolved. Do not let the milk come to the boil. Turn off the heat and stir in the vanilla, olive oil and frangelico (if using), then let the mixture cool for 5–10 minutes.

Add the beaten egg, cream of tartar, flour and bicarbonate of soda and whisk to form a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and arrange the apricot quartered and craisins on to batter the any way you like.

Sprinkle with the chocolate powder and bake for 55minutes to 1 hour and 10 mins or until browned/dark brown and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for a 10-20 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool at room temperature for 1 hour before cutting. Serve just as it is.

Note: For an alcohol-free version, replace the liqueur with milk. You can use full cream milk if you desire to. If using very small apricots like I did, layer quarters on top of each other so that they won’t completely sink into the batter as it cooks.

https://helenscchin.com/2014/12/09/apricot-craisins-and-olive-oil-cake/

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