CBC 14 - Apricot Slice ...

... and an announcement!

The party last night was lots of fun, Miss KH had no idea and was completely surprised.  And Miss KH is soon to be Mrs KS!!!!!!!!  So pleased ;0)

Before leaving for the party yesterday I had time to make this Apricot Slice which comes from Bill Granger's book 'Bill's Open Kitchen'.

Apricot Slice
185g plain flour
170g caster sugar (I used vanilla)
1 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
3 eggs
60ml milk
2 tsp natural vanilla extract
180g butter, softened
14 apricots, pitted and halved (this may vary depending on the size of the apricots)
2 tbsp caster sugar, extra

Preheat the oven to 160C.  Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.  Place the eggs, milk and vanilla in another bowl and mix to combine.  pour the egg mixture and butter into the well in the dry ingredients and beat for 2 mins until smooth.  Spread the mixture evenly into a greased or non stick 20 x 30cm lamington tin.

Push the apricot halves, cut side up, evenly into the cake mixture in four rows of seven (my tin couldn't quite fit this, I'm guessing next time I need to bunch them up a bit closer!).  Place in the oven and bake for 20 mins, sprinkle over extra sugar and cook for another 20 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Cut into fingers with two apricots halves per slice.

Makes 14 slices
Bills Open Kitchen

Bill also says that if fresh apricots are out of season you can use bottle or canned ones instead.

We couldn't wait to tuck into this slice and had to wait a whole 10 mins for the apricots to cool down enough not to burn our mouths!  When it was still warm it had a really overpowering 'eggy' taste to it, I put this down to stupidly using three large eggs where I am guessing Bill used medium in his recipe.  However, now the slice is cold the eggy taste has disappeared and the mixture of the vanilla cake batter and the jammy fresh apricots blends for a wonderful summer treat.