apricot slice and a kitchen mystery

apricot slice and a kitchen mystery

• 13 Apr 2026

I've been away for the past week, staying at Farmer Andrew's house in Dungog. As I was in the country, I thought it only fitting to bake something deliciously old fashioned like this Apricot Slice. At it's heart is a simple butter cake, flavoured with vanilla then topped with apricot halves and a dusting of sugar. The original recipe comes from Bill's Open Kitchen by the one and only Bill Granger, who sadly passed away a few years ago. There are some lovely recipes in the book and its probably time to revisit some more of them.

Apricot season has come and gone in Sydney so I used bottled apricot halves and  added some finely grated lemon rind to the batter to replace some of the lost zing. The original recipe was a mix it all in batter but as I didn't have a stand mixer, I went the old fashioned route of creaming the butter and sugar before adding the eggs and flour. The baking powder had expired so instead of all plain flour I used a combination of self raising and plain flour instead. I'd not used Farmer Andrew's new oven before and as he was away and I couldn't locate the manual, I just twiddled the dials and hoped for the best.

Here's the recipe for you which was adapted from a recipe from Bill's Open Kitchen. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Apricot slice – makes 9 slices
Ingredients
150g unsalted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

1½ tsp vanilla extract
finely grated rind 1 lemon

2 eggs
¾ cup (110g) SR flour

¼ cup (40g) plain flour 

a pinch of salt

60 ml (¼ cup) milk
8-10 apricots, pitted and halved (this may vary depending on the size of the apricots). If fresh apricots are out of season you can use tinned or bottled apricots
3 tsp caster sugar, extra

Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C, conventional. Grease and line a 7 x 11 inch slice tin with baking paper.

Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon rind in a medium bowl until light and fluffy. Add in the room temperature eggs one at a time until combined. Sift the flour and salt and add the flour to the batter in 2 batches alternating with the milk to form a smooth batter. Spread the mixture evenly into the slice tin.

Push the apricot halves, cut side up, evenly into the cake mixture into 5 or 6 rows of 3. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, sprinkle over extra sugar and cook for another 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

When cool, cut into fingers to make 9 slices.

I cut and photographed the slice and when I returned to put the cooled cake into the cake tin, the cut slice you see here had disappeared.

I'd not eaten the slice and as only the dog and I were in the house at the time, I asked Mavis if she knew what had happened. Mavis assured me that she'd not eaten it, and as she's a pretty honest girl, (and she was quietly snoring on my bed when the slice was snaffled) I believed her. I cut myself a piece of the slice and it was so delicious I can't really blame the cake thief.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian