This cake was made using a recipe that I said at the time was probably one of the nicest cakes I have ever made. This time I made it using chopped apricots and blueberries.
I really like recipes like this, that can be adapted to whatever you have in the house. On this occasion I happened to have a few blueberries, left over from the daily sprinkling on our porridge, and some apricots.
The apricots had been part of our "click and collect" shop from Asda. They weren't great.
We have tried the "click and collect" service from a few supermarkets and on the whole have found Asda to be very good. One thing we have learned is not to allow substitutions for certain things. For example, in our local Tesco, observing the youngsters trundling the trolleys of trays around the store you can imagine how a bean is just a bean to someone who might not be familiar with the difference between a green bean from Africa And the delicious and short season British broad bean.
Having said that, I remain immensely grateful to each and every one of them for keeping us fed and safe during a truly horrible and trying time.
The great thing about "click and collect" is that you avoid the risk of being in the vicinity of other people. One of the downsides is that it takes ages to navigate the supermarket website and you can make mistakes in ordering. This is how I found a packet of instant custard in my shopping. I have no idea how it got there but I confess that I am now hooked...….Mary Berry eat your heart out.
The other is that you end up with stuff that you would never in a million years have bought if you had seen it for yourself in the store. The cauliflower that was only the size of a large apple was one of them and these apricots were another. I could somehow tell from the package that they would be tasteless and nothing at all like the wonderful, juicy, tasty and fragrant apricots that were given to me in France last year (which you can read about here).
However, disappointing fruit often benefits from cooking and they worked really well in this cake. It was, like the first time I made it, utterly delicious. You can see the recipe here.
Lovely looking cake, despite the apricot issues. I've been doing on-line shopping for aged relatives and some of the substitutions have been more than a little odd. I did read about someone who had 6 eggs substituted for the chicken that they'd ordered. I suppose that eventually it might have come to the same thing.
ReplyDeletePhil, lockdown shopping has been an entertainment. Drama, comedy and thriller all rolled into one click and collect order!
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