Kitchen Diary: Chocolate And Apricot Squares

It's rainy and it's a perfect day to bake. Beautiful rainy days can be enhanced with the sweet smell of cake baking in my oven especially when it's chocolate.

I found this recipe from a book, Cook's Library Chocolate, bought from a yard sale. This book shows how to use chocolate, be it white, milk or semisweet, in different recipes. What I love about this book is that the recipes are well laid out and easy to understand. Each recipe is labeled from easy, moderate to challenging. Since I'm a beginner in baking, I'm starting with the easy ones.

Before I bake, I prepare all the portions and ingredients first - eggs, dried apricots, semisweet bars and butter. Not in the photo are flour, baking powder, and salt.

Preparing to melt the chocolate and butter.

This is my favorite part, the melting of chocolate and butter. The mixture infused a wonderful scent of chocolate throughout the house. I must do this often. It's better than scented candles.

Folding the flour mix into the chocolate and butter mix.

Chocolate and Apricot Square Cake

An afternoon with a good cup of Vanilla Latte and a small square of sweet indulgence. The best part is that I made it.

The cake was done at around 3 PM and it was the perfect time for an afternoon snack. Mom and Dad loved the cake. I did too. The recipe calls for white chocolate, but I substituted it with semisweet instead. I think that with white chocolate, the cake would be overwhelmingly sweet, but I am thinking of making the white chocolate version in the near future. At the moment, the semisweet came out just right.

This recipe serves 12.

From Cook's Library Chocolate: Chocolate and Apricot Squares

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
6 oz white chocolate, chopped (substitute with milk or semi-sweet)
4 eggs
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup no-soak dried apricots, chopped

1. grease a 9-inch square cake pan and line base with baking parchment
2. melt butter and chocolate, stir frequently until mixture is smooth and glossy, cool slightly before mixing
3. beat the eggs and sugar into the butter and chocolate mixture
4. fold in flour, baking powder, salt and chopped apricots
5. pour batter into the pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes
6. when cake is completely cold, turn it out and slice into squares or bars