What a busy weekend of cooking this weekend! I'm glad to finally be relaxing in my bean bag whilst my boyfriend plays a bit of wii next to me! I'm exhausted!!

I was off to see my Grandma, and told her I'd bring a cake for afternoon tea. So on my daily time wasting exercise I stumbled upon the recipe for this cake. The picture looked so good, and made my mouth water. Got the recipe from the taste website: link to recipe here.

This cake was fairly easily to make and the results are amazing. I still have some dried apricots left so I think I will make one during the week to take to work.
Had some spare so brought it home and gave some to Iron Chef Alana and she loved it!

I would say this is a delicious cake to serve with afternoon tea.

1 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup warm milk
125g butter, chopped
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup plain flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3/4 cup desiccated coconut

Icing
2 cups icing sugar mixture
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 3cm deep, 16cm x 25.5cm (base) slab pan. Combine apricot and milk in a bowl. Stand for 10 minutes.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs. Mix well.

3. Stir flour, bicarbonate of soda and apricot mixture into batter.

4. Spoon batter into pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean. Cool in pan.

5. Make icing: Combine icing sugar, milk, butter and vanilla in a heatproof, microwave-safe bowl. Heat, uncovered, on MEDIUM (50%) for 20 seconds or until butter starts to melt. Stir until smooth, adding more milk if required. Spread icing over cake. Sprinkle with coconut. Cut into slices. Serve.

Makes 15 slices.