I’ve been clearing out our grocery cupboard. Every few months, I make an effort to purge our groceries to make sure there is nothing lurking in the back of the cupboard that is going out of sell-by date.
It sometimes reveals some interesting finds.
Today, I found these dried sour cherries. I don’t remember buying these, so it must have been my hubby. At any rate they are about to reach the end of their shelf life. Rather than waste them, I decided to put them to use in a cake.
Since I also had some bananas which were going very brown, they were now not so great looking in the fruit bowl but would be perfect for this Banana Loaf.
Ingredients:
75g Dried apricots (dried squishy fruit such as apricots if you have them)
75g Sour Cherries
Zest of 1 lemon
100g Unsalted Butter (softened but not melted)
125g soft brown sugar
2 large eggs (free range if possible)
2-3 large ripe bananas
200g self raising flour
Loaf tin (13x23x7cm)
Loaf tin paper case (optional)
For the crunchy topping: (this is optional)
1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon of Rolled Oats
1 teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon
To make the cake:
In a bowl, mix together the Sugar, Butter and eggs. Combine them until it is a soft batter. Add the chopped fruit (apricots and sour cherries) along with the zest of 1 lemon.
Mash the bananas until they are gloopy and runny and add these into the bowl and stir gently.
Add sifted self-raising flour gently, I tend to put the sieve over the bowl and gently tap in the flour, folding in the flour into the mixture. It should look a little lumpy, (making sure that there are no pockets of flour in the mix).
Spoon into the loaf tin as evenly as possible (it will spread out as it cooks).
My eldest made the crunchy topping at school during one of the cookery lessons and she showed my how to make this delicious topping.
To make the crunchy cinnamon topping:
In a Saucepan, gently melt the soft butter and soft brown sugar, add in rolled oats and ground cinnamon, making sure you coat all the oats with the cinnamon and buttery sugar. Once golden brown take off the stove and add small dollops of the mixture over the top of the cake mix that is in the loaf tin. As it cooks the small dollops of oats mixed into the butter and sugar will turn cook with the loaf and give a wonderfully fragrant cinnamony crunchy texture to the cake.
In the pre-heated oven, bake on 160c for about an hour (check around 50 mins to see if the cake is ready). It’s ready when you can put a skewer into the cake and pull it out clean.
This cake can be eaten hot from the oven but can be stored for a couple of days in an air-tight container to keep it moist.
