On the menu for over 20 years, this one has a soft summer season passionfruit topping

We Get Requests

This is an old favorite that I have made with all sorts of ingredients from back when I was a student and hadn't all that much money. That has nothing to do with the cake, but everything with the second hand cooking books that I bought! I have this lovely gaudy early 70ties "Woman's Own" cookbook with all those sensible leftover cooking tips and weirdly colored images - loved it. It has many traditional recipes you can vary upon and make your own.

A tea bread is a well-filled cake that you eat with a cup of tea at 4 o'clock - just like a coffee cake does not necessarily contain coffee but is eaten with it; this to clarify the name that might be off-putting for some.

Method

Prepare the cake tin with a bit of margarine and line it with baking parchment. Put flour, oats, pecans, vanilla sugar and salt in a bowl and mix them with a fork. In another bowl, beat the butter until creamy, then add most of the brown sugar and continue to beat till fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, and beat well. Then with a metal spoon, stir in small amounts of the dry ingredients, alternating with the banana and the apricots. Spoon the mixture into the tin.

Bake in a pre-heated oven, 170°C, for about 50 to 60 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely before covering with icing.

Passionfruit Icing

Put icing sugar and just a little butter (a teaspoonfull) in a little pan that fits in a larger pan with hot water. Add a little passionfruit juice and stir to make a dryish paste - use about 2 tablespoons. Keep stirring over hot water until the mixture can be spread out using a knife. Use any leftover passionfruit juice to drip onto the glaze for a splattered effect.