January Cake

Happy New Year to all my readers, including someone new in Cape Verde!
Christmas is now well and truly over and after all that rich food our thoughts turn to. . . . .
Cake! well I know mine do. I have been staring at comports still half full of seasonal goodies like dates, crystallised ginger, Turkish delight, marron glacé, for over a week. The festivities this year didn't see them all eaten up. So when I thought of creating a new cake for January, using up a couple of these ingredients made sense. A food processor makes making this cake really easy, the result is a deliciously moist cake, gently scented with ginger, an ideal cake to enjoy with a pot of Russian caravan or indeed to serve a one of Bruce's Brunches in Balliol.

Cape Verde bring the count up to 144! Welcome!

Monaco makes it 145! Welcome!

Bolivia, welcome! No 146

For this cake you will need;
180g Self Raising flour
170g of light muscovado sugar
170g of unsalted butter
3 eggs
100g of crystallised ginger
100g of medjool dates
50ml of DiSaronno liqueur
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

Heat the oven to 180C and line a 20cm by 8cm round cake tin.
Place the flour, baking powder, salt dates and ginger in a food processor and process until you have a fine crumb. Processing anything moist such as dates with the flour allows them to be finely ground whereas without the flour they would form a sticky lump. Add remaining ingredients and blend on a pulse setting until you have a smooth cake batter. Place the cake mix in the prepared cake tin and bake for 45 minutes. Allow to cool completely before taking out of the tin.

Notes:
Grinding up dried apricots or pears works in exactly the same way. This cake keeps well in an airtight container, just as well if like me you're trying to lose the odd kilo you put on over Christmas.