Having my cake and eating it too ...

I'm baking today. It's not something I do very often, but I thought I should take advantage of the boy and his fruit intolerance being away for a little bit. I'm making my ultimate favourite cake. The recipe comes from my family's surrogate grandmother, a very special lady called Ida. Ida's the kind of person who is always going out of her way to do things for friends and the person I look up to as the ultimate domestic goddess. She helped my mum bake the zillions of cupcakes for our wedding, even going to the point of blitzing dry bread into fine flour to use for the chocolate cupcakes that were sinking too much for her liking! This particular cake featured at our wedding and was also the subject of a massive bidding war at a local charity auction. The final bid ... a spectacular $75. You know it's got to be good!

Ida's Macadamia, Prune and Port Cake



Cake
250g prunes
enough port to cover prunes
250g sour cream
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
125g unsalted butter
1 cup caster sugar
2 x 60g eggs, lightly beaten

Topping
1/4 cup soft brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts
icing sugar for sifting

1. Place prunes and port in a bowl to soak overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 20cm springform tin and lightly coat with a little flour. Mix sour cream and bicarbonate of soda. Sift flour with baking powder. Blitz prunes and port to desired consistency.

3. Cream butter and sugar until light. Add eggs to sour cream mixture, gradually add this to the creamed butter and sugar, mix well. Add flour mixture, stir until combined. Fold in prunes and port. Place in prepared tin.

4. Mix brown sugar and macadamia nuts together. Sprinkle half over cake mixture and cut through with a plastic spatula to make a swirl effect. Sprinkle remaining mixture on top. Bake for about 1 hour or until warm skewer inserted in centre of cake is clean.

Serve with sifted icing sugar and cream.