Orange prune cake

A prune is any of various plum species, mostly Prunus domesticus or European Plum (commonly referred to as a Sugar Plum). They are usually sold as dried fruit. Fresh plums that are marketed as "prunes" have an oval shape and a more easily removed pit. The dried fruit is wrinkly in texture, and chewy on the inside.

Prunes are used in cooking both sweet and savory dishes. Stewed prunes are a dessert. Prunes are a frequent ingredient in North African tagines. Prunes are used frequently in Tzimmes, a traditional Jewish dish in which the principal ingredient is diced or sliced carrots; and in traditional Norwegian fruktsuppe.

Prune juice is made by softening prunes through steaming and then putting them through a pulper to create a watery puree. Prunes and their "juice" contain the natural laxative dihydrophenylisatin. Prunes also contain dietary fiber (about 7%, or 0.7g per prune). Prunes and prune juice are thus common home remedies for constipation. Prunes also have a high antioxidant content.

I like to buy pitted prunes. I use them in a variety of ways:-

(a) eat them on their own

(b) add them to cereal

(c) add them to a plate of cut fruits

(d) use them to make prune cake

Set out below is a recipe for orange prune cake. The preparation time appears to be long because of the time taken to chop the prunes and to grate the rind of the oranges. Other than this, this is an easy recipe and you can taste the flavour of the orange very clearly in the baked cake.

Ingredients

250g butter
210g castor sugar
grated rind of 2 oranges (only the orange-coloured part of the peel)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp ground hazelnut
4 eggs
270g self-raising flour (sifted)
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (sifted)
3 tbsp lukewarm water
120g dried prunes, pitted and chopped

Method

1. Grease a 9 inch square cake tin and line with greaseproof paper.

2. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy, then add orange rind, vanilla essence and ground hazelnut.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4. Fold in the sifted flour and ground cinnamon a little at a time and stir in the water.

5. Add the chopped prunes.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 1 hour.

Tips

1. You can use margarine instead of butter. However, the use of butter makes the cake more flavourful.

2. You can use fine sugar instead of castor sugar.

3. I once used orange juice (since I had already grated the orange rind, I thought that I might as well make use of the juice from the orange) instead of lukewarm water. The cake turned out fine as well.

Comment

I once used top flour instead of self-raising flour to bake the cake. I had never used top flour before. The cake did not turn out as moist as the previous times that I baked the cake using self-raising flour. I am not sure whether this was due to the substitution of the type of flour or the fact that I added an additional egg yolk (I had steamed an egg white with rock sugar in a double-boiler - according to Tiki, this works wonders to make one's vocal cords smooth, so I ended up with an additional egg yolk and I did not know what else to do with the yolk so I added it to the prune cake batter). However, this just goes to show that when you bake cakes, it is best to follow the recipe as closely as possible unless you know how to modify the recipe.