Molly Cake

Is it too soon to be thinking about spring cleaning? I thought I might start with the larder as in preparing for Christmas I often buy  ingredients that I might not use up for sometime afterwards. It might because everyone has had their fill of the kinds of recipes that need them or else everyone is trying to uphold the virtue of restraint and are simply not interested in cakes, biscuits or snacks of any kind. There are handfuls of dried fruits, nuts and that extra pack of dates we thought we might need; little bits of this and that. This presents the ideal circumstances for making Molly Cake.

I first came upon this cake at a John Lewis food court. Waiting to order a cup of tea, I decided it wouldn't hurt to cast a casual eye over the display on the cake shelves. And there it sat, a slice of Molly Cake with its label declaring it to be free of added refined sugar and fat, it was as good as saying "Look if you are gazing at the display in this case you are probably planning to eat cake and this is likely to be the healthiest option." I had never heard of Molly Cake before and having tried it and liked it well enough to want to try baking one I searched the internet for a recipe. Several sites had recipes and all were quite similar so I thought the most appropriate choice would be the recipe on the Waitrose site.

Like Glad Tidings it uses softened dates to bind the other ingredients together so along with the ground almonds and dried fruit it is just the thing to use up those remnants of Christmas baking. It is good at other times of the year too and I have substituted a pack of chopped dried fruit salad for the fruit element. The flavours of the dried peaches, apricots and pears worked really well.  Either way it is well worth making.
Please don't remind me that although it has no added refined sugar, the dried fruit and dates have sugars of their own and that it is not a low calorie snack. The lack of added fat and the wholemeal flour have to count for something, right?