This Little Pig has a great mum. Bringing up lots of piglets must have been an arduous task at times, however ‘the luscious sow’ as she is affectionately named, rose to the task magnificently and raised (if we don’t say so ourselves), a fabulous litter.  Part of raising these glorious swines included feeding them to the brimful every morning, noon and night.  A staple in the Little Pig household, to keep the rumbling bellies at bay, was the cake that has now been named appropriately “The Cake of Happiness.”  Not too sweet yet delightful, moist and moreish, this cake will actually win friends and influence people but once you try it dear piglets, I fear you will snuffle down the lot rather than giving any to a friend.

*Note: You must soak the apricots for an hour in nectar before mixing up the cake - don’t do what this young swine did and prep all items only to find out you need to soak the apricots for an hour (a devastating turn of events) though This Little Pig’s mum assured the lamenting piglet that “an hour would fly by.” It did fly by actually but we don’t want to admit that too readily after the fuss this piglet caused.

The Cake of Sunbeams & Happiness.

Feeds: 1 Greedy Piglet or about 8 Dainty Swines.

Prep Time: 20 Mins. Cooking Time: 1 Hr.

Ingredients:

1 x Cup Chopped Dried Apricots

1 x Cup Apricot Nectar

125g Butter

2/3 x Cup Raw Sugar

2 x Eggs

1 x Cup Coconut Moist Flakes

1 ½ x Cups Self-Raising Flour

1 x Cup Chocolate Chips

Method

• Soak the apricots in the nectar for 1 hour (don’t complain piglet just do it).

• Preheat oven to 170°C.
• Grease a round cake tin (or two small rectangular ones).

• Using an egg beater (This Little Pig doesn’t have the muscles for creaming by hand) cream/beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy..just make sure it’s mixed well in a nutshell.

• Separate your egg yolks from your egg whites. This basically means crack your egg in half and then gently holding your egg over a bowl, pour your egg from one half of your shell to the other, all the while, letting the egg white pour into the bowl, whilst hopefully keeping the yolk in tact in the egg shell. Unfortunately This Little Pig had a shaky hand from too many hot coffees and broke one of the egg yolks (forgive me grandma I have failed you), but This Little Pig likes to show that it has flaws too, so did not re-do the image/didn’t have another egg (the girls have been a bit lazy lately – too busy looking into the house it seems).

• Add egg yolks to the creamed butter and sugar, one at a time, beating well after each one.

• Stir in the coconut and then half the sifted flour and half the apricot mixture and mix with great gusto (you’ll need to start using some serious baking bicep muscles here).

• Add remaining flour, apricots and chocolate chips and continue to mix until all is combined well.

• Beat the egg whites with your egg beater, until soft peaks form (we want gentle mountains but not so firm an elephant could walk on them).

• Fold your egg whites into your mixture. Don’t know how to fold? Fear not piglets, just google it! (JUST KIDDING). There's lots of complex ways involving rotating bowls and flipping spatulas, but This Little Pig simply uses big circles with the spoon to create air in the mixture and avoid squashing the fluffy egg whites as it combines the mixture. Don’t be a lazy swine and start mixing roughly halfway through due to boredom or your cake will come out flat and lazy like yourself.

• Pour your lovely cake mixture into your greased cake tray.

• Place in your preheated oven and bake for 1 hour (but keep an eye on him as we don’t want him burning and drying out).

• Let cool for 5 minutes then turn onto a wire rack and grin devilishly at your creation.

You have just created the cake of happiness. *Best enjoyed with a coffee and the knife close at hand to cut a second slice. Oink.