You don’t need to ‘use your loaf’ to make this one, it’s very simple, very nutritious, a great breakfast and quite tasty too.

We ran out of bread and milk yesterday and had nothing to ‘rustle up’ quickly, apart from beans (which you don’t always fancy at 7am). In order to make up for this hungry/starvation morning, I thought I’d try my hand at a new breakfast loaf recipe, something we could take to work and heat up there. Something with some fruit and nuts….and not Cadbury.

I found the recipe on trusty old ‘Food 52’ website, it was an adaption from Diana Henry’s ‘A Change of Appetite’, which I then adapted again – only very slightly – adding some white flour with the wholemeal, more cider and a tad more sugar.

Here we go, it’s best warm with butter – in my honest opinion. The flavour is not too dissimilar to a sticky date pudding because you cook the dates in some cider with the apricots for long enough for them to turn into a paste, really moist and a great little number to keep up your sleeve!

Ingredients Makes a small loaf – be careful as Australian cups (here) are different to US and English so will need converting

• 12 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 cup of dates, chopped
• 2/3 cup dried apricots, chopped
• 2/3 cup apple juice or cider
• ½ cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
• Zest from 1 orange
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup of wholewheat flour, sifted
• ¾ cup plain flour, sifted
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1/3 of a nutmeg, grated (or 1 tsp ground nutmeg)
• ½ cup walnuts chopped
• 2 tbsp pepitas/pumpkin seeds
• 2 tbsp sunflower seeds
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Method

Preheat oven to 350°F or 175°C.

Melt butter and leave to cool.

Put dates and apricot into a pan and add the cider or apple juice and about 4 tbsp of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes until you have a thick paste. If you still have some small lumps, this is fine and actually better. Leave to cool.

Butter a standard sized loaf pan and line bottom with baking paper. My pan is 23 x 12cm.

Add cooled butter to the puree with the sugar, zest and egg and give it a little mix.

Use a large bowl and add the flours, baking powder, allspice,nutmeg, walnuts and seeds (reserve some to sprinkle on top!)

Now add the wet mix to the dry and fold together until just combined. Be careful not to over mix!

Transfer the mixture to your loaf pan and sprinkle with the rest of your seeds then bake for about 1 hour. You will know it’s cooked when a skewer comes out clean.

Let the loaf cool in the tin for about 10 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack.

Slather with good butter and enjoy!