Few foods have been as demonized as the egg over the past few decades, but as Nigella Lawson succinctly points out the humble egg is “nature’s very own perfectly packaged convenience food.” So it makes perfect sense to dedicate an entire book to them as chef and food writer Blanche Vaughan has done. Vaughan trained at the River Café and has worked at Moro and St John and the recipes within her gorgeously packaged hardback reflect her impressive CV. As you would expect there are stacks of delicious breakfast and brunch treats within these sunshine yellow pages, all elevated with subtle twists such as adding crispy sage and chilli to a “frizzled” egg on toast and there are great supper ideas too – a spinach, marjoram and ricotta sformata that we can’t wait to try out or salmon with an egg and lemon sauce. But there are lots of pragmatic tips for refining basics such as poached eggs or a heavenly tortilla to slightly more time-consuming crème patissiere or a rich egg dough. But it’s the teatime section that really gets the pulse racing here – Vaughan is spectacularly good at cakes (as well as tarts, biscuits and crepes). There’s a chocolate, almond and orange cake that could well be our favorite new grown-up birthday cake – it’s light but incredibly rich. And a fragrant, deliciously moist pistachio, apricot and orange blossom cake too. Vaughan is kindly sharing the recipe for the latter here – what better way to spend a sunny weekend afternoon than baking – and eating – this?
Pistachio, apricot and orange blossom cake
serves 6–8
250g softened unsalted butter
250g sugar
Zest of ½ orange
2 tbsp orange blossom water
4 eggs (about 250g in weight)
100g ground pistachios
100g ground almonds
50g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch fine sea salt
150g dried apricots, chopped
For the topping
50g sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 tbsp chopped whole pistachios
Here the flavours of pistachio, apricot and orange blossom are inspired by sweet Arabic dishes. The ground nuts give the cake a dense, moist texture; it also helps it keep for longer.
Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/gas mark 3 and line a 900g loaf tin or 23cm round springform or loose-bottomed cake tin with baking parchment.
Beat the butter and sugar together using an electric stand mixer or handheld whisk until pale and fluffy. Add the orange zest and orange blossom water and mix well. Add the eggs one a time, mixing well after each addition, until completely incorporated. Add the ground nuts, flour, baking powder and salt and fold together with a metal spoon or spatula until you have a smooth batter. Finally, fold in the chopped apricots.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes.
Test to see if the cake is done by inserting a skewer into the middle; it should come out clean.
Allow to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.
While the cake is cooling, make the topping. Put the sugar in a small pan with the lemon zest and juice and bring to the boil. Add the chopped pistachios and stir well. Immediately pour over the top of the cake. Let it cool a little before cutting and serving.
