Apricot Almond Bread – The Moosewood Cookbook

Last month I joined the Cookbook Confidential Book Club hosted by Bernadette from New Classic Recipes. Each member takes a turn at suggesting a Cook Book and we all select a recipe to make, review the book and decide if we would make room on our bookshelf for the cook book. Our first Cookbook selection was Chris Kimball’s Milk Street Tuesday Night’s Mediterranean and you can see what I made HERE . The next one is The Moosewood Cookbook. Watch for my review in a later post.

Whilst scanning the recipes I came upon the Apricot Almond Bread and thought it sounded delicious. I’ve written the recipe and here is the Goodreads link to the book The Moosewood CookBook: Recipes from Moosewook Restaurant, Ithaca, New York, if you would like to explore the other recipes.

Apricot Almond Bread

40 mins to prepare Cook 1-1/2 hours – mine only took 40 minutes to cook.

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups thinly sliced apricots

1-1/2 cups water

2-1/2 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons softened butter

½ cup honey or maple syrup

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

½ – 1 teaspoon orange rind (I didn’t use this)

1 cup finely cooked almonds

Method

Preheat Oven to 350F 180C or my oven is fan forced so 160C

Butter loaf tin

Place apricots and water in a saucepan, bring to boil and then lower heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  Transfer to a medium bowl and cool for about 15 minutes

Sift dry ingredients, except almonds in a separate bowl

Stir butter, honey or syrup into cooled apricot mixture and then beat in egg and vanilla

Add to dry ingredients along with orange peel and almonds

Mix well but don’t over mix

Spread into pan and bake for 1-1/2hours mine was much faster than that. I checked and when knife comes out clean it is cook. Let it cool for about 10 minutes before removing from pan and a further 15 minutes before cutting.

How did the recipe rate?

✰✰✰ – Easy to make and ingredients readily available although a little time consuming in prepping and cooking apricots. It cooked much faster than the recipe suggested so you need to keep your eye on the timing.
✰✰✰✰✰ – Tasted delicious and I would make it again. It is also healthy and versatile. It can be great for a morning or afternoon tea, or served with a dollop of yogurt or cream as a dessert.