Apricot Sheet Cake

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We harvested some of Judi's apricots while her family was out of town. Her tree has the best apricots I've ever tasted! Sherry came to visit and shared her vegan apricot cake recipe, which we made together this morning. The secrets: Lots of fruit, and use sparkling water or soda to make it light and fluffy. I made this with white flour, but will try whole wheat next time. The original recipe says this is a twist on an Austrian sheet cake - a flat sponge cake baked on a sheet.

Variations: Can make with plums or cherries, or bake in regular cake pans.

Ingredients

Wet:
1 C apricot puree (about 6-8 apricots)
2/3 C sugar
1/2 C sparkling water or sparkling fruit water
7 T canola oil

Dry:
2 1/3 C flour
4 tsp baking soda

Topping:
20-24 small apricots, halved (or 12 large, quartered)
2 tsp powdered sugar
toasted almond slices

Instructions

Use a food processor to blend de-stoned apricots into a puree.

Whisk together puree, sugar, and oil. Add sparkling water (can use sparkling apple or peach or lemon water if you don't have plain) and mix.

Mix together the dry ingredients. Pour into wet batter and mix.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper and spread batter onto sheet. Cut apricots and lay along the top, flesh up / skin down. Use a lot of fruit! Optionally, add almond slices (forgot to do that this time, but will next time).

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  Fresh out of the oven, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Sherry spreads out the batter.

I thought this might be too much fruit. Wrong!

Cooked and sprinkled, yum.

Hurry up and cool!!

Cut into bars the half sheet that wasn't devoured.






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