We’ve had a pot of sloes in the fridge destined for Sloe Gin but the requisite gin has yet to be bought. Needing to use them up, I wondered if baking would make these mouth-puckeringly sour fruit more edible.
So I added the sloes to an oat-based cake I’ve been trying out using Grown in Totnes oats. Surprisingly they lost much of their astringent sharpness and were a lovely addition to this cake which I’ve also made with blackberry and apple and roasted rhubarb.
If de-stoning sloe sounds way too fiddly, you could just use apple in the cake. Then make a simple syrup with the sloes and pour over the top. As the last wild fruit of the season, it feels good to use what we have growing around us.
Ingredients
- 150g oats
- 150ml milk (any kind)
- 175g sugar
- 175g butter
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 175g flour (I used spelt)
- 3tsp baking powder
- 2-300g apple, chopped
- 100g sloes, stones removed
Method
- Put the oats in a bowl and cover with the milk. Leave to soak for an hour or so, or overnight
- Preheat the oven to 180°C
- Cream the butter and sugar
- Add the eggs and beat together
- Add the flour and baking powder and mix well
- Fold in the apple and sloes
- Pour the batter into a large prepared cake tin (22cm). Top with sliced apple or sloes.
- Bake for 1hr – 1&1/4 hrs or until a skewer comes out clean
- Leave to cool slightly before turning out
A little bit more…..
If you’ve forgotten to get the butter out of the fridge, as I frequently do, you could also melt the butter with the sugar in a pan over a gentle heat first. Leave to cool slightly before adding the eggs then continue as above
Any fruit can be used, sharp flavours work well with the oats
Vanilla, cinnamon or ginger add lovely additional flavours
This works well as a tray bake, halving the baking time to around 30mins
Kando Journal & Kitchen 