Rescuing Soft Brown Sugar

If, like me, you find that your part used bag of soft brown sugar now resembles something more like the Rock of Gibraltar. Do not despair, do not throw it away, try this. Stand the open bag of sugar in a large polythene food bag, dampen a sheet of kitchen paper and put that alongside in the polythene bag. Seal the top of the poly bag and leave for 24 hours. Worked like magic. Rock returned to soft brown sugar.

Molly Cake

I made Molly Cake today. I'm not sure where I first heard about it, but a cake that contains no eggs, no fat and no added sugar sounded intriguing. I did a search on line and a number of recipes are listed. I decided to try this one, for no particular reason:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7961/fat-free-gooey-molly-cake

Allegedly it is called Molly Cake or Molly's Cake after an elderly lady called Molly who gave the recipe to the National Trust at Cliveden.

I was a little sceptical about the ingredients, no eggs, no fat, no sugar didn't sound much like cake. There seemed to be far too much batter to put in a 2lb loaf tin and I had visions of it boiling over, but it didn't and the cake is truly delicious (if you love fruit cake). It is moist and very fruity with just the right amount of spice and has a really old fashioned weight about it. Certainly one I will be making again. Also it is very easy to make, but do not try to chop the dates in a food processor, they stick to the blades. Just cut them up roughly by hand.