Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup castor sugar
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract (or 1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind)
• 3 oz dried apricots
• 8 oz shredded carrots
• 9 oz all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
• 2 oz chopped walnuts

Method:

• Add enough water to cover apricots and let stand for about 15-20 minutes.  Chop them into small pieces
• Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9×5 loaf pan with parchment paper and grease lightly
• In a large bowl beat eggs and sugar until smooth.  Add oil, orange rind/orange extract and vanilla extract and beat until frothy.
• Squeeze excess juice from carrots and stir into the egg mixture with chopped apricots.
• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together
• Add four mixture into the wet ingredients in 3 batches until well combined
• Mix in poppy seeds and walnut pieces
• Spoon batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top
• Bake for about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes (or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean).
• Leave in pan for about 10 minutes
• Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely

Note:  After making the cake, I felt like the amount of poppy seed I added was a bit too much.  So it can be reduced to 1 tablespoon or 1 1/2 tablespoons.

Tagged: all purpose flour, apricot, bake, Cake, Carrot, loaf, poppy seed