Olive Oil and Orange Cake with Honey-roasted Apricots

Olive oil adds a lot of moisture to the cake and I love to use a fruity version for extra flavour. It keeps well in an airtight container, without the cream and fruit topping, for 5 days.

¾ cup olive oil 1 cup caster sugar 3 large eggs ½ cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ teaspoon sea salt finely grated zest 1 orange

1½ cups ground almonds (almond meal)

1 cup plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon each ground cinnamon, ground cardamom and ground nutmeg TO SERVE 1 cup mascarpone 1 cup cream

Honey Roasted Apricots (see recipe below)

1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted

EQUIPMENT: Grease a 20cm springform cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 160°C regular bake.

Whisk the olive oil, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, salt and orange zest together in a large bowl. Combine the ground almonds, flour, baking powder and soda and all the spices together then whisk into the olive oil mixture until smooth.

Pour into the tin and bake for 30 minutes. Take out and loosely cover with a piece of foil. Bake for a further 35 minutes, or until the cake feels firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely in the tin.

TO SERVE: Whisk the mascarpone and cream together to form soft peaks. Place the cake on a serving plate and spoon over half of the cream.

Top with some of the apricots and scatter over the almonds, serving the remaining apricots and cream separately. SERVES 8