Almond and dried apricots cake was made keeping my mom in mind. She is such a picky eater.

My mom loves nuts and dried fruits and she definitely loves a good but small piece of cake, but it should be the right one. Sweet but not too sweet, spicy but not too spicy, super moist and soft and with an extra something that makes it amazing.

My happiness was beyond words when she loved this almond and dried apricots cake, asked for more and wanted the recipe to make it herself. This cake combines dried apricots and toasted almonds, that give it such a nice texture and is flavoured with powdered cardamom, which I completely adore. In case you can’t find it vanilla or cinnamon are fine to spice up this cake, but if you can find it please don’t skip it, since it matches so well with the flavours of dried apricots and toasted almonds.

You may play with different nuts and dried fruits, like hazelnuts & dried figs or walnuts and raisins. It’s all up to you.

To bring this almond and dried apricots cake to a whole new level I covered it in white chocolate glaze and some flaked almonds. You may skip both of them if you prepare this cake on regular basis, to save some calories, but I strongly suggest to use it if you prepare this cake for any special occasion, like having friends coming over or preparing it for your mom. And of course you may use a dark or milk chocolate glaze, instead of white chocolate, but in this case just add the amount of cream up to 100 ml.

If you’re looking for other sweet recipes you can find many of them in this blog’s sweet session.

Ingredients

Cake

• 2 & 3/4 cups flour
• 3 tbs corn-starch
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp powdered cardamom
• A pinch of salt
• 200 g butter
• 1/4 cup sunflower seed oil or olive oil
• 5 medium eggs
• 1 & 2/3 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 & 1/3 cup milk
• ¾ cup chopped almonds
• 12-15 dried apricots

White chocolate glaze

• 200 g white chocolate
• ¼ cup unsweetened milk cream

To decorate

1/3 cup flaked almonds – optional

Note : 1 cup – a standard cup of 240 ml

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Chop the almonds and toast them in the oven 5-10 minutes, until they start getting golden in the edges. Careful because they may burn quickly. Toasting nuts makes them extra crunchy and enhances their flavour, but if you’re short on time you may skip this step. Once the almonds are well toasted remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely.
3. While the almonds are toasting chop the dried apricots and set aside.
4. Butter and flour a 26 cm pan.
5. In a big bowl mix flour, corn-starch, baking powder, a pinch of salt and cardamom powder.
6. In another bowl mix butter and sugar until creamy.
7. Add oil and mix again.
8. Start adding eggs one by one and beat well.
9. Pour the milk and vanilla extract and beat again.
10. Pour the dried mixture to the wet mixture and mix well.
11. At the end add the chopped almonds and chopped dried apricots.
12. Bake in the preheated oven for around 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Check after 40 minutes and if the cake starts to brown on top, put an aluminium paper, to prevent it from burning.
13. Let the cake cool in the pan for around 20-30 minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
14. Once the cake is completely cool prepare the chocolate glaze.
15. Chop the white chocolate in very small pieces, the smallest you can.
16. Warm the cream, until it gets hot and pour it over the chopped white chocolate. Let it seat for 30 sec to 1 minute and start mixing fast, so the chocolate melts.
17. Pour the chocolate glaze over the cake and also some flaked almonds if you have them on hand.