A demonstration by Ruth Pretty was my last stop at the Martinborough Olive Harvest festival. As entertaining and informative as always, Ruth made a lemon olive oil cake, a dark chocolate olive oil mousse with orange sugar snaps and these apple and olive oil loaves made in baby loaf moulds. Serve them cut in tiny slices spreading the cream cheese frosting on as you would butter. Makes 7 baby loaves — each mould has a volume of 150ml.
Loaves
| 60 g | Sultanas |
| 45 ml | Water |
| 1 cup | Flour (Main) |
| ¾ tsp | Cinnamon |
| 1 pinch | Salt |
| ¼ tsp | Baking powder |
| ½ tsp | Baking soda |
| 60 ml | Extra virgin olive oil |
| 80 g | Caster sugar |
| ¼ | Vanilla pods, cut in half lengthways, or 1/4 tsp vanilla extract |
| 1 | Egg, lightly beaten |
| 1 ½ | Apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm dice, braeburn is good here |
| 1 | Lemon, freshly zested |
| 45 g | Walnuts, chopped |
| 1 | Egg, white |
Apple cream cheese frosting
| 30 g | Unsalted butter, chopped and softened |
| 35 g | Muscovado sugar |
| 30 ml | Apple syrup |
| 80 g | Cream cheese, at room temperature |
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Directions
Loaves
- Heat oven to 170C. Lightly grease 7 baby loaf moulds (or 12 muffin tins) and line bases with baking paper.
- Place sultanas and water in to a small pot and place over a medium-low heat and simmer until sultanas have absorbed water. Remove from heat and cool.
- Sift flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl.
- Into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a beater attachment place oil and sugar. Scrape seeds from vanilla pod and add to bowl. Beat until combined.
- Add egg and beat until smooth and thick. Add apples, sultanas, zest and walnuts and fold in using a large spoon.
- Place egg white in a clean bowl and whisk to soft peak stage.
- Add flour mixture to oil/apple mixture and fold in.
- Add half the egg white and fold into the batter. Gently fold in the remainder. Spoon batter into prepared tins.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until loaves spring back when lightly prodded in centre. Sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, remove from tins and cool completely. Remove paper from bases and frost generously with apple cream cheese frosting (see recipe below).
Apple cream cheese frosting
- Place butter, sugar and apple syrup into bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a beater attachment and beat until smooth and fluffy.
- Scrape down the sides of bowl and add cream cheese. Beat frosting until completely smooth.
