Baking - Orange and Apricot Loaf

Orange and Apricot Loaf

Get the kettle on and enjoy a slice of this delicious fruity loaf cake.

Serves 8 - Ready in 1 hour 30 minutes, plus cooling

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter, softened 175g caster sugar 175g self-raising flour 3 medium eggs Grated zest and juice from 1 small orange, plus extra zest to decorate 75g ground almonds 125g ready-to-eat dried apricots, chopped Icing sugar, to dust

1 Preheat the oven to 170C / fan 150C / gas mark 3.

Grease a 900g (2lb) loaf tin and line the base and two long sides with baking paper. 2 Place the butter, sugar, flour, eggs and the orange rind and juice in a bowl. Beat with an electric whisk until thoroughly combined. Toss together the ground almonds and apricots and fold into the mixture. 3 Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and gently level the surface. Bake for 50 minutes - 1 hour 10 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely. Serve dusted with icing sugar and decorated with the extra orange zest.

TIP - If the top of the cake starts to over-brown before the end of the cooking time, cover loosely with a piece of foil.